


I choose...

by Likorys



Series: Geraskier week 2020 [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, because they are idiots and bad with feeling, gratuitous inserts of lore I found on the internet, into the Netflix show universe, no beta - we post like dyslexic with no friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 12:04:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 44,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22715116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Likorys/pseuds/Likorys
Summary: Julian is born with a witcher's necklace on his wrist. He decides that if destiny's too lazy to give him a clear match, he's not gonna do its for it and ignores his Mark.Then he meets Geralt of Rivia and it all goes downhill.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, brief Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: Geraskier week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1636678
Comments: 41
Kudos: 378





	1. Jaskier

Julian Alfred Pankratz is born with a blemish on his wrist, stretching up to his thumb and around it. His parents cover it with soft mittens and don’t think about it until his first birthday, too occupied with raising their position, now that they have an heir to wed out.

But the morning of the first birthday a servant girl comes in with Julian and shows a clear Mark on his skin, and they are forced to think about it then. They chose to arrange a marriage with a daughter of a count who owns land next to theirs and send for a tailor to make a leather glove to cover a wolf-shaped medallion on Julian’s wrist and the chain of a necklace circling around his thumb.

The little boy is bathed and dressed and undressed by servants, scolded for trying to do it himself and caned whenever he tries to ask about the glove or take it off. He still hears whispers about _being Marked_, but his parents scoff at it and make sure he never hears a word about soulmarks, so Julian is left to wonder what hideous thing must be hidden under the soft leather for years.

They can’t avoid sending him to school, and when he goes there they send a servant girl with him to make sure he still sees nothing. She’s sent away with half a year of his allowance and he finally sees the Mark and throws the gloves away. It takes months for skin of his hands to match. It wakes a week for him to heal from punishment from his parents, but they can’t make him forget now, so they let it be.

There are more whispers, because he’s still a noble so nobody would be rude outright. You don’t talk about Marks in a polite company either, at least not around here and the few kids from far away not to know this are quickly thought better. His first, no, the _second_ caning in the school is for breaking a nose of a boy who mocked his Mark, the next one for kicking out 3 teeth of another boy one a week later, and those help to give him peace too. Whispers are not enough to let him learn anything, but nobody can stop him from reading, so he figures out what the Mark means and then what a _wolf medallion_ means.

Julian’s angry, at first, because why did he get something so general, how is he supposed to find the one witcher that’s destined to him? If he can even finds him at all, there’s no more of them being made and even then they’re supposedly heartless monsters who don’t love anyone.

He remembers words of parents, the whispers of _being marked_ and the marriage waiting him at home. He finds a tailor and orders new gloves, for both hands, and picks up playing instruments so people won’t ask as much.

Julian’s stubborn, but also a little bit of an idiot sometimes, so he decided to pretend his Mark doesn’t exist – if Fate couldn’t be bothered to give him a clear clue, he won’t be doing its work for it!

He falls in love, again and again and again. There is Sarah, the tailor’s daughter, with a circle of stars around her wrist that she hides under a ribbon that Julian loved to stroke with his fingers when they hold hands (jeweller’s apprentice gifts her a bracelet with identical pattern when Julian’s back at home for holidays and they’re married when he’s back). There is Zena, another student from far away kingdom, and she wears the cracks covering her back like she’s a piece of shattered glass as proudly as her open dresses, she screams at anyone who’d ask about it, but let’s Julian pepper it with kisses (there is an accident in winter, she slips from a road and crashed through a frozen river back-first, but an old lumberjack saves her and they both leave before the semester is over). There is few others, until he meets Mikah, a sweet boy his age who covers a burned-out brand at his hip and kicks Julian off whenever he touches it as they spent winter evenings cuddled beside the fireplace (he gets a letter from home, about the lord who kidnapped his first love being dead, and he starts packing as he continues to read it out-loud in their shared room). There is Silan, a burly guy who’s nose he broke in their first year of school, whom he finds crying in the communal bath with a sharp lines of an arrow head coming out at his shoulder blade and they talk and get angry drunk and Julian’s can finally teach someone about lovemaking and not just learn (they go to learn hunting in the forest before holidays and they meet a young daughter of the hunter, half their age with missing teeth and hair cut short, and Silan puts an arrow trough her shoulder by accident and she never cries and Julian knows the drill by then and just slinks back and never approaches him again).

Julian loves and loves and _loves_, but it becomes a running joke that if you want your find you Marked one, just date the Pankratz boy, you’ll find them within a season. He laughs it off and loves still, just prepared for heartbreaks he collects like magpie shiniest treasures. At least he knows now it’s always just a method and transaction, so he loves and dates and finds over two dozen people their Marks before he finishes school.

He goes back home and finally meets Josabelle, his betrothed that until this point he only wrote occasional, benign letters to. She likes horses and strawberries and blue silk and striped ribbons. She likes when he plays and sings along and smiles brightly when he starts to join her in silly love ballads. They talk about books and gossip about newest clothes and she blushes when he makes poems about her curly hair and dark eyes and tan skin.

She has a line of thorns along her spine he only ever hears about. He gifts her roses after that and she smiles a sad, broken smile and he never does it again.

When Julian is taken by his father hunting, she goes for a horse-ride and falls off. She lands in a wild bushes that tear up her pretty laced dress and sprains her ankle. She’s carried back home by a gardener named Brer.

Julian is fifteen and helps _Ben_ and _Josie_ run away at night and spends a month writing down angry songs with all the tears he won’t allow himself to shed.

He promises himself he won’t love again.

* * *

He goes to Oxenfurt and studies fine arts along anything his parents chose for him and writes songs about love and destiny and perfect unions and never believes a single word, which means he has to repeat the same lecture every semester and almost fails until he writes down all the heartbreak he buried and he cries as he sings it, but he gets a passing grade.

He reads all there is known about Witchers, then about monsters, then about magic, then about Marks. He learns all about the ways different kingdoms and cities and cultures treat them, all theories about the bonds of the souls being the apology for the Conjunction of the gods or fate or universe itself, so you should never ignore them.

He tries to anyway, because he doesn’t like more choices being taken from him.

He decides he doesn’t care about any of them and keeps his gloves on even when they start to feel too tight, but then a mage and sorceress visit their school and it sounds like a joke.

Then, in the middle of a night, Julian is drawn to the fountain in from of the Academy and the sorceress is sitting there. She hold a wooden instrument, small with metal plates she’s striking with he fingers.

Melody is even, light and hounting.

“The lion is outside of your door, the wolf is in your bed. The lion's claws are sharpened for war, the wolf's teeth are red.” Her voice is echoing around like a choir and her eyes and pure blackness and Julian drowns in them. “And what a monstrous sight they make, when at your side they stand, as both the wolf and lion crave the same thing in the end.” There is a howl and a roar that ringing in his ears and something shatters.

He’s awaken by a nurse, the howling was his blood-curling screams and his gloves are gone, the Mark stark-black against snow-pale skin.

Julian buys a new pair of gloves, with strings to last him longer, then he buys a lute. He begs his professors to let him finish all the exams early.

Jaskier sneak out of Oxenfurt with a lute and nothing else. He tries to outrun the words still ringing in his ears, but they never fade completely.

* * *

The inn is shady at best and only half-full, but Jaskier’s out of money and hungry since last week and _his blood is boiling_ with the latest rumours he heard.

“_You think you’re safe without a care~, but here in Posada you’d be wise to beware~!_” he lets his voice lilt and hang in the air as he stand up. “_The_ _pike with the spike, that lurks in your drawers, or the flying drake~ that will fill you with horror~!_”

People don’t seem impressed, but he doesn’t give a single fuck about entertainment today.

“_Need Old Nan the Hag to stir up a potion! So that your lady might get an abortion~!_” he drags the word out and smiles a satisfied, cruel smile when some people turn their heads and hide the grimaces in their ales and food.

Then he’s told to _abort yourself_ and there’s food flying and-

It’s _worthless_ and he knows it. The mayor who’s on another hunt will never even know of it, the wife he barely looks at won’t keep the next child because of it and he was lucky to be pelted with bread he can pick up and eat instead of something else. He knows all of this, but his blood is still boiling and if he hadn’t done something it might’ve burned him out.

Then he looks up and something draws his eyes to the shadowed table in the corner and he sees him.

He tried to keep stubborn and not give a fuck about his Mark, but a year on the road and countless dalliances and the sorceress’ voice ringing in his mind like a curse can make a heart grow fonder (or a bard desperate). If it’s a Witcher he’s destined to find, he’ll just teach him how to love and then all will be fine, right?

So he forgets the bread and his lute and steals an ale from a serving girl and never takes his eyes off the Witcher. It’s the first one he ever saw and he’s not gonna waste his chance. If he’s send away he’ll at least know he tried and shout it at the empty void in his soul until it’s filled and stops aching.

His flirting is atrocious and obvious and completely ignored, but he’s stubborn despite the stilted words and _the bloody punch_ that he will swear bruised his stomach for a week. In the end he’s allowed to trail after the witcher, the Geralt of Rivia, the _Butcher of Blaviken_ because that’s just Jaskier’s luck that he finds the most infamous witcher in the Continent.

But then they meet the Filavandrel and the elves and Jaskier read enough poetry to recognize Geralt’s words for the meagre attempts at saving him that they obviously are and he’s not really sure if the song about coins and witchers writes itself because of his Mark or just because Geralt cannot deserve the infamy if even bound and beaten he was still trying to get a stupid bard to keep his life.

He decided it doesn’t matter – maybe he’ll teach himself to love a witcher just like he plans to teach a witcher to love him. Because one thing he is sure of, and it’s that Geralt has a heart.

* * *

It’s few contracts later and Jaskier learned to stay in the inn when Geralt packs his potions, even if it means trying to either get the story from Geralt (which is nigh impossible) or just guess. He actually saw a kikimora once, but never a Queen, but it’s been a week of rain and he decided to earn them money and improvise later instead.

It means only a few more lies and Geralt will hate it either way, so it doesn’t matter.

“_I could get lost in the feelings we're feeling, just say that you're one Marked for me!_” he strums the lute, leaning against the wall and singing a languid tune. The inn is full with workers brought for harvest and people always liked the tripe about destiny and fate and perfect matches, so he plays into it. “_Do you want more of this? Isn't it glorious? I can't believe that it's free! I will adore you, I'll only live for you, Just say that you're one Marked for me~!_”

He jumps on his seat when Geralt’s back, door of the inn hitting the wall and the smell of blood clashing with warm food, the rain a constant buzz behind him. People start muttering even as witcher moves to the corner where the alderman is seated and Jaskier’s reminded of the first town after Posada, being chased out with stones and angry shouting and he decided to intervene.

He makes sure to look over the head of kikimora’s Queen, notice all that is different from a normal one, and then jumps off the stool with a thud of a steel heels. Heads turn to him and he strikes the melody up again, this time moving around and trying to keep attention on him.

“_Crawl into my heart, take me apart, do what you please to me, I won't resist!_” he forced himself to be louder, as much as the song allows. “_Find what you're seeking, I am not leaving, 'til I am drunk, loved up, in your kiss!_” His throat hurts because he already sang trough half a day, but he can see Geralt get to the alderman with little trouble now, so he ignores the pain. He’s still unsure how much of it is Mark, how much is his stupid plan and how much is his genuine affection that’s growing every day despite his efforts to nip it in a bud, like a weed spreading in a garden. “_I must confess~ to you, I want to posses~ you!_” he leans against the main support beam and taps his heel on the floor and people pick it up easily to clap. “_Feels like we're dreaming, like tripping and reeling, just say that you belong to me! I could get lost in the feelings we're feeling, just say that you belong to me!_”

He continues the song in circles, moves across the inn and switches a few words apart so people won’t get bored. It means he gets some coin thrown at him as he passes and has to kick it in the general direction of his lute case so he won’t be chasing it all over the floor, but now barely anyone looks at Geralt as he makes the deal with alderman, so Jaskier won’t complain.

He ends it when his voice start breaking, thanks _all the glorious patrons_ and goes to gather his coin. It’s good enough, he notices already that Geralt has a chance to either scar people into ignoring him or into paying more, but it’s better than when he was alone, because with a witcher close at least nobody gets sticky hands anymore.

He sits in front of Geralt flushed, sweaty and hoarse, so he steal his ale to take a few gulps. Geralt lets him, only grunting and it does something to Jaskier’s insides, but he decided to ignore it.

“I say, this went pretty well!” he shakes his purse for the effect before hiding it away. “My professor told me once this was a _tired cliché and a waste of parchment_. Ha! I’d love to see his face now-“

“He was right.” Geralt doesn’t even look up at him, but his brows are pinched and he rubs at his forearm. Jaskier’s starting to learn how to read him, and he can recognize the tone. “It’s shit.”

“Oh, really, Geralt? He was right to fail me, that’s what you think? _Puh_-lease, this _shit_ just bought us another night here and a bath for you.” He snorts, crossing his arms defensively.

Because he can deal with his maybe-soulmate not liking some of his singing, but he could at least appreciate when it brings them money!

“Marks are bullshit.” Geralt takes back his tankard and Jaskier lets it slip from his fingers, because something in him just broke a little, a crack that’s ready to spread further, like a blown-glass if you don’t stop in time until the hole is too big to fix.

“What, witchers don’t have Marks as well as hearts?” his joke is weak and he knows it, but he needs _more_. He needs a proper explanation this time and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t do everything he can.

Geralt rubs at his arm again and the crack slowly widens as Jaskier suppresses a shudder at his own suspicioms.

“Come on, you’re still human under all the those glorious muscles and pretty hair, aren’t you?” he pushes, because he never knows when to stop. “Everyone has a Mark.”

Geralt stands abruptly, and the bench is by the wall so the tables moves instead and Jaskier loses breath for a second when it jabs at his stomach. He grabs the half-eaten dinner and trails after Geralt, up the stairs and then into their room, because it’s just his luck only one was empty. Maybe he could’ve asked again now, after Geralt killed what he was asked, because that seems to make food miraculously appear sometimes so maybe a room might too, but he the cracks is spreading and if he leaves it now he’s not sure it’ll ever close up.

It’s the first time they don’t sleep in the wild and Jaskier doesn’t care if he has to share the fucking bed with the witcher, he’s not gonna complain.

The bath is already drown, the room wet with mist and Jaskier shrugs off his doublet as soon as he closes the door behind them.

“Let me guess, baths in scalding water are another of your witchery things?” he asks, eyeing the tub that’s still letting off fog and putting his lute into the far away corner of the room. He’s pretty sure it’s magic, or just elven craft, because he crashed it on the head of a drowner once and not a scratch was made on the polished wood, but he’s not ready to risk it with elements.

Then he notices Geralt just standing by the bath, his shoulders tense, and he makes a very astute observation: he never saw him naked. Scratch that, he never saw him without full armour on, because the witcher doesn’t need sleep and only sits by the fire sharpening his swords.

He can literally see the scales in Geralt’s brain, trying to decide if the bath is worth it with Jaskier in the room, and it hurts more than he expected. Because it’s been _weeks_, Geralt took a few baths in the rivers they passed even if Jaskier refused and used cloth and water heated by the fire in copper cup so they never did it in front of each other. Doesn’t mean he didn’t wonder about how Geralt look under the armour and leather, because of course he did, they might be soulmates and it’s been weeks since he had sex and he’s not used to that-

Back to the topic on hand, Jaskier feels really hurt by the luck of trust and he decided to do something with it.

“Come on, off with all – that,” he comes up to Geralt, rolling his sleeves up and mourning his chemise that will definietly not survive it. He taps a piece on witcher’s forearm and crosses his own arms when gets a suspicious look thrown at him. “You’re getting into this bath and I’m even gonna be nice and wash your hair before something _breeds_ in all the dirt.” He reaches to take off a piece of slimy skin from his soulder and throws it to the small fireplace warming the room.

A mistake, because it hisses and lest a puff of smoke, and Jaskier does not blush at the way Geralt rolls his eyes.

“You’re taking this bath or so help me gods, you will not touch the bed.” He threatens and he knows it’s stupid, Geralt doesn’t seem to care for comfort so he’d just march out of the room and make camp.

But Jaskier’s allowed to reach to the small clasps and Geralt stiffens, but doesn’t push him away, so he continues, slowly unbuckling the armour and putting it on the floor, piece after piece, until his fingers have to rip off bits of intestines from Geralt’s side and- “Also, I can literally see a _hole in here_, what the fuck, Geralt, if you’re hurt I swear to Melitele, I’m gonna fetch a healer and you will be paying for it!”

Geralt huffs like a startled bear and it takes Jaskier a second to realize it’s his idea of a laugh. He rolls his eyes, because sure, there is nothing he can do beside talking his ear off, but it’s the _sentiment_ that matters!

He goes back to fiddling with small, sticky clasps that don’t seem all too keen on unclasping and he almost rips out a fingernail when he tries to pry one open.

“Do you _ever_ clean those?” he’s mutters and the stilted shrug he gets in response only makes him sigh.

Then he’s trying to hold the damn armour and he grunts because _fuck_, how is Geralt so nimble with this weight on his? He lets it thump against the floor and tries to remember if he has the spare brush for the lute strings and enough oil, because yes, those clasps look like they never even saw water, let alone soap, and he won’t stand for it.

He turns back to Geralt and will never admit he had to bite down a moan at the first sight of him, but he totally did. A tunic is wet with things Jaskier doesn’t want to think about and it clings to Geralt’s skin, to the broad shoulders and thick arms and muscled chest, and those leather pants leave nothing to imagination and Geralt would probably break a boulder with his tights and_ fucking hell_, Jaskier needs to swallow three times before his finds his voice again, and even then he cracks a weak:

“Off with those too and in the water.” Because his imagination is running wild already and he needs to turn back before his stupidly nice, silk pants show off how much he likes what he’s seeing. Geralt doesn’t seem to react when he turns, so he feels safe for now, but if this becomes a regular occurrence-

And _fuck_, does he want it too, not a care for how much of his desires are the Mark and how much his own because it’s real enough so _he doesn’t care_. Destine fucked him over with a _witcher’s Mark_, so he feels well within his right to decide which witcher he desires! The issue of reciprocation notwithstanding, because Geralt _tolerates_ him now and he can _wait_.

He takes out some oil and bath salts and a bar of soap, because he’s a _civilized human who needs more than a sand-rub_, but he doesn’t say that because Geralt won’t care. He picks up the stool and turn around and this time he need to bite down a forlorn sigh.

Geralt’s done away with his clothes that lay in a wet heap by his armour – and Jaskier is pretty sure he knows who’ll be the one to wash them before sleep – and he’s sat in the bath. It’s not big enough so he keeps his legs bent and spread and Jaskier makes sure to not look in that direction at all. His head is rested on the wooden edge and his arms out and where witcher was rubbing his forearm before, _there is a burn mark the size of Jaskier’s palm._

Jaskier is no idiot. He caught his parents and almost-in-laws discussing if they should get rid of the _Wrong Marks_ and pay for a matching tattoos, and he knows how those things are done.

But seeing it on Geralt is somehow so painful the crack within him spreads and it was always _his heart_, which now shatters into pieces that scrape at his chest and won’t let him breath.

“You’re staring.” Geralt’s voice breaks tough his mind and he looks away, bushing and mumbling apologies. Witcher _hmms_ and there is a sloshing of water that almost drowns out a quiet: “It’s s test.”

His broken heart stills, because he can think of two options and one seems worse than the other, and he must’ve shown how horrified he is, because Geralt huffs a laugh again, arms spread on the sides of the wooden tub.

“Can’t have them coming back for the children they abandoned. Without Mark, no way to recognize them.” Geralt’s voice is as empty as a black hole and Jaskier shudders and rubs at his eyes.

He didn’t cry since _Josie_ and he definitely won’t cry now, but that doesn’t mean he won’t do anything.

“Well. At least I know you won’t abandon me for a pretty whoever.” His joke lands flat again, but he doesn’t care as he puts the stool right behind Geralt and puts all but the soap to the side. “As I said, I’m gonna be nice and wash your hair before something hatches in there, so sit up.”

Geralt looks at him for a moment as if he could read his mind, head still tilted back, before slowly sitting straight. His tense as a board and his neck is at Jaskier’s mercy so he doesn’t say a word.

He does pour a bucketful of water on him, just to see the great witcher sputter before he starts rubbing soap into his hair. It takes three more buckets and enough time for the water to turn lukewarm, but Geralt’s hair is almost silver in the candle-light and Jaskier already has a ballad half-formed in his mind, one he knows he’ll never sing out loud.

But when he fingers move across witcher’s neck and arms they are hard as stones and Geralt’s didn’t really move during the hair-wash, but he is shifting in the water every so often. Jaskier tries to count how many hours has he spend on Roach’s back between sitting hunched trough the night and all the monster hunting and grimaces with sympathy.

“Wash yourself and then I will be especially nice and help you relax.” He says, and it takes Geralt giving him a very unimpressed stare for Jaskier to realize just how he sounded. It’s a habit, he supposes, after flirting so much, but somehow he still feels his face burn under witcher’s star. “I mean a massage, you brute, get your mind out of the gutter.” He snaps and reached for the oil to put some onto Geralt’s hair. “Honestly, if I was making a move on you I would be _far_ more direct because you can be as thick as a boulder. Which you’re doing a grand job of impersonating right now.” He mumbles and tries not to flinch when Geralt actually _chuckles_.

He tries not to care as he rubs oil into silver hair and watches Geralt wash himself, just like he tries not to notice scars on his skin or the methodical sharpness of his moves. His a witcher, he spent all of Jaskier’s life fighting and then who knows how long before it, of course he’s unused to small comforts. Like long bath or massage or sex he didn’t have to slay a monster or pay for.

That’s what he decided to tell himself, because the other option is that Geralt doesn’t consider himself worthy of being hit on by Jaskier and that has such painful implications Jaskier has to rub at his eyes again with his wrists before he starts to finger-brush Geralt’s hair. He feels a need to braid it and promises himself he’s gonna reach a point when Geralt will let him.

They don’t talk much for the rest of the evening. Geralt lets Jaskier push him into his stomach and rub oil all over him and after two small bottles of chamomile, he does seem half-relaxed, he even has his eyes closed and head pillowed on his arms, so Jaskier takes it for what’s it worth and gets off the bed.

“Go to sleep, I’m sure you’ll insist on riding off before sunrise so you’ll need it.” He says softly as his finger brush Geralt’s hair back and tie it loosely so they won’t tangle in his sleep.

He washed off with above a bucket that somehow still had warm water and changed into a nightshirt before sitting by the pile of dirty clothes and armour. He threw the tunic into the bathwater because it was stuck into a knot and started with washing of the grime from the leather pants, humming absentmindedly.

It was _nice_, this whole thing. Geralt letting him a tad closer, letting him do something nice for him, telling him anything about his past. He’s terrified of destroying it – so much that he’ll forego a bed to instead spend a night on painstakingly brushing out old dirt and blood and guts and who knows what else from silver clasps, one after another.

He’s used to sleepless nights and if by morning he’s got dark circles under his eyes, Geralt doesn’t mention it. He does make some move with his hand that dries his clothes in a moment of _sudden_ _heat_ and Jaskier has to hide a tender smile.

* * *

With time, with days upon days Jaskier spends droning out _Toss a coin, _people stop fearing Geralt so much. Only to the point of not kicking him out of town, but this is still an improvement because it lets him actually work. Jaskier still remember Posada, the way Geralt seemed to barely stand him, but still left his last coin for him, and it breaks his heart every time and makes him sing with renewed vigour no matter how many dark stares are thrown his way (people are less likely to throw other things with Geralt around).

But the change lets him notice something about Geralt of Rivia. It’s not that he doesn’t want or like people near – after the first bathing things changed too, because it became _a thing_. Geralt takes the armour at the camps now, he lays down some nights even if he might still not be really sleeping, he lets Jaskier manhandle him into baths (be it a tub in an inn or a big enough river or a lake). It took some time before witcher stopped being tense as a board during all of it, but he let it all happen nonetheless (and Jaskier is eternally grateful for all the lovers he had and all the ways to get rid of unwanted erection he learnt from them).

Geralt doesn’t _expect_ people to be nice to him, or kind, or even decent enough to not decide to kick them out of the town when Geralt is still _out risking his life_ to kill their monsters. Jaskier finds himself flirting more not only to keep his libido in check, but also to give the people an easy excuse.

Geralt hates him for it a little, but if he can hate his promiscuity for costing them the room or payment instead of himself for simply existing, Jaskier can live with that. His Mark burns under the glove and he stopped wondering how much of his feeling are just from it.

It doesn’t matter in the end. He decided to chose Geralt for himself, and Geralt has no match.

It’s real enough for him.

* * *

Sometimes, he thinks about a girl from his hometown. He prefers to try and forget about her, but he never can, so sometimes he just wallows in melancholy for an evening and the next day is fine again.

She was called Anna and she’s one of the biggest regrets of his life.

Josabelle Vermouth was betrothed to him since forever, but she was a daughter of only second richest neighbour count. The first count, SaIeveen, seemed to have no children, for as long as Jaskier remembered – then his tenth birthday came and Lettenhove and all region was in uproar.

The lady Saleveen had a daughter, a bastard child kept in a room since birth. A whole decade of her life, spent locked in a room with only a mother seeing to her, the Lord always on one journey or another to make more and more money in his trades. Jaskier’s not sure if he ever saw the man before the little bastard girl, Anna, became a public disgrace.

He remembers when they brought Anna to school. The way she curled on the chair like she never sat in one, how she couldn’t answer any questions and how she ate the dinner with her hands. How everyone laughed at her and pointed fingers. He earned his _first_ caning as he ate just like she did, for disruption and bad example (it probably says all there is to know about his character and Jaskier’s fine with that).

She was fine in class, but would never talk unquestioned and it was eerie. Nobody wanted to get close because there were whispers of lice and fleas, and even Jaskier took a few days of observing her before deciding they were only rumors. He also noticed how she would stare longingly at other kids playing, but never ask to join them, so he started to sit with her, during outdoor times and then just during breaks between lessons, talking a mile away. If he not so subtly tried to teach her some human interactions (like not pissing half-naked into an empty flower pot in their class, dear gods, that was _not_ the way he wanted to learn how girls look under the pretty laces), well, it was pure coincidence.

He remembers adults saying that at least her mother was merciful enough to teach her to read, even if she barely talked. Jaskier was far more convinced she did it so she could busy Anna with books and keep her off her mind, because she never taught Anna how to write.

He tried to be there for her, but he was dealing with his soulmark and falling in love time and time again and he didn’t do good enough job, he knows it. He still remembers the way she looked the first time she heard him play clumsily on a lute and sing a song the teacher mentioned in their class. It was like she felt happiness for the first time and Jaskier never could quite rid himself of music completely since then.

But then she was fourteen and Jaskier was heartbroken over someone and didn’t go back home for a week of holidays and she never came back to school. She was carted off to a marriage of alliance and profit and he only found out when he got a slightly trampled invitation to the wedding, to perform as a bard.

He went there early, spent a few days helping around and stealing little moments to talk with Anna, and then he sang at their wedding. He can still remember the cheap song he wrote, barely fourteen and wet behind ears and with no idea how to make songs beside _making them rhyme_.

And it was awful and people were pitying him for making a mockery of himself and laughed at Anna for making a farce of a wedding and Jaskier’s father was furious and beat him till he couldn’t walk for a day at home.

But Anna was smiling for the short while, during his song, so it was worth it.

Few years later she died in childbirth and nobody questioned an infant child looking suspiciously old, but then nobody question why she was barely seen outside her room or how badly she tried to hide bruises under powders.

Jaskier saw it at the wedding and asked her to run, ready to do _anything_ for her, but she just asked him to play for her till someone whisked her to try desserts. He swallowed the venom and did as she asked and then poured it all out into his stupid, shitty little song.

Sometimes, when he sees Geralt sit by the fire and sharpen his swords, eyes still coming back from endless black, the smell of blood still in the air, fully knowing he won’t sleep but just sit and meditate and that the five sentences describing the fight is all he can get-

He’ll brush his fingers along his bedroll and hum under his nose to tune out the old memories that seem too familiar.

_Every single day, every word you say,_

_Every game you play, every night you stay_

_Every move you make, every step you take_

_Every claim you stake, every vow you make_

_I'll be watching you~_

* * *

He flirts, because he loves people and loves sex, and it became a habit to give mobs a free excuse so Geralt never blames himself for any trouble arising in towns they stay in (and yes, sometimes it’s more trouble than it’s worth, but Jaskier knows to avoid completely screwing them over now, like that time they got run out of town and lost all of their things _and_ money).

But above all else, Jaskier detests misery. So if a lovely maiden is promised to some old lord just because they’re Marks are both flowers or a wife of an alderman hasn’t shared a bed with him in 5 years since she bore him a son, well, Jaskier will gladly put out to cheer them up. Even if he has to make it up to Geralt later and sometimes fears that it might be one dalliance too much and witcher will let leave him to the proverbial wolves.

Funny thing is, it ends in sex much more rarely than Geralt probably thinks. He’s careless because he _plans_ to get caught, so often it’s just a few kisses or some curious touches before there is a husband or wife at the door and he’s running away.

It's also often testing the grounds, so to say. It was one thing to read about weird ways people treat the soulmarks and entirely different to be run out of town because they think it’s a Mark from gods and he’s declared a heretic to have his mouth sewn shut for saying he doesn’t plan to act on his own.

He gets good enough to tell who’s interested pretty early on, but you should never underestimate stupidity of man, especially brought from many worlds smashed together.

He remembers one place that saw the Marks as prophetic and the _bad ones --_ like a broken glass or an arrow head or thorns -- would be sign of divine punishment that deserved only stoning. There’s another were it was bad to be Marked with someone of the same sex because they treated Marks like a sneak-peak into nature’s grand design and couple that would bear no children was bound in a _warning_, so they would get neutered at soon as they got matched. In another town he heard that multiple Marks (which are a rarity) were a sign of possession, more spirits than one body should hold – those would be exorcized or killed off if the first method didn’t make the other Mark disappear.

It’s only a small portion and Jaskier could go on for days if he wanted. So he’s still cautious, at least to an extent. The good thing coming from this is that most people don't care about who you bed or in what position – but instead they mock those with more Marks or without them and treat their own bonds as guarantee of happiness and good life.

What a _farce_. He’s seen enough wives left to their own devices and enough husbands kept at a distance to know that for some people, finding their Mark is like finding a possession and they just put it on a shelf and let it be.

So he seeks them out, tests the waters and gives them if not a night of fun, then of his attention at the least and, when they’re caught and the cock or cunt of the day sees they might lose their spouse, they chase him off and then maybe try a little harder, at least for a while. Jaskier knows he won’t fix the world, but if he can have fun and make life better for a bit for some miserable souls, how can he complain?

But here’s the thing. Jaskier flirts so much it becomes his second nature and he’d need to consciously think about not doing it, never-mind how pathetic it can get when he’s truly enamoured. He’s pretty sure Countess de Stael will talk about _poor sod_ who gave her poisonous flowers and tried to spin it into _her beauty spreading poison of love in his heart_ for the rest of her life. At lest she liked him enough to keep his name out.

Yet, across all the years Geralt doesn't react to his flirting, at all, not even once, and Jaskier is regretful to say that before he learned how to hold his drinks he got so sloshed he was waxing poetics about witcher right into his ear a good few times as Geralt took pity on him and carried him to bed.

Which meant – Geralt either didn't get what Jaskier was hinting at, which would be a small mercy; or he didn't think himself as good enough, which is a thought that haunts Jaskier every time he sees Geralt disappear into a brothel instead of letting Jaskier find him some company for a night; or he just doesn’t expect it from Jaskier and think he’s just flirting instead of talking because it’s his character trait or something equally stupid, which seems the most probably option because Jaskier had to explain to the great idiot that _no_, he’s not sick or poisoned, it’s normal for your chest to tighten and your heart to squeeze when a dozen small children decide to climb all over you, because they’re a village so forgotten in time they never got the memo to hate witchers (they spend a very pleasant week there and Jaskier finally got to braid Geralt’s hair and there were flowers and many children involved).

Jaskier made sure to write down the name and to make a crude map for later and even created a whole song verse about few landmarks they passed on their way there, even though it was completely unneeded to spread the tale of Geralt and a wraith he got rid of there.

So he tries to help. It brings up memories of Anna at first, as he starts subtly explaining emotions as he rants about one thing or another to Geralt – like the details of how he adored the cute little griffin cubs they helped out of a ravine so the mother can take them and get on her way instead of attacking merchants, the way his hearts squeezed like a wrung-out cloth and the tingles that seem to ripple under his skin and the innate need to wraps his arms around something. Or how he understood that the women propositioned his daughter to him because he brought Geralt to help their town, but he still refused because the daughter had no say in it, the way bile rose in his throat, but cold realisation of the level of hopelessness choking the town sunk into his bones like lava seeping into any crevice it finds and weighted him down.

Because it's not that witchers don't feel, they just aren’t taught what to do with those things. He knows it’s true because his shameless _How to feel _lessons worked, and Geralt seems to deal a little better with humans.

He’s not sure Geralt needed it, per se, but his song was becoming known and they were forced to deal with people more often than not and there is only so much his singing will do if Geralt steps on everyone’s metaphorical toes whenever they stay.

So he talks and explains and makes sure to never make it obvious.

One night he find himself start thinking about Anna on his own, because he hadn’t done it in a year. He writes down her song on a parchment, burns it and never sings it again.

* * *

Then comes a month of dreadful contracts, one after another, and a backwater town that chases then off with stones and pigs let loose, and then a _selkiemore_ that Jaskier knows by now need to be cut from the inside due to hard scales. It’s so awful and he can see it wearing down on Geralt.

So he decided to take him to Calanthe’s ball instead of just apologizing for two-weeks absence. He doesn’t decide to have a heart to heart when he’s bathing him, but things happen sometimes.

It’s the mention of _Geralt’s death_, the notion that the witchers live in disrespect and hate until something kills them and _that’s all they get_ that nags at Jaskier’s mind and doesn’t let him leave it alone.

_I’m not your friend_ echoes in his mind and, yeah, okay, maybe it’s this thing too. He spend almost a decade by Geralt’s side, but he still feels held at arm’s lengths and it’s starting to _wear on him_. They’re friends, he knows they are by how much Geralt lets him get away with, but it would be nice to get some affirmation.

He loves him and resigned himself to it, chose him to be who his Mark represents, but it’s much harder to love from hiding that he expected when Geralt barely lets him do _anything_ for him. He wonders more and more often if actually asking for sex would help, but he never tries because the possibility of Geralt refusing hurts too much in theory, let alone in practice.

“Come on,” he puts his hands on his hips because if he didn’t he’d probably go hug Geralt and they’re not close enough yet to hug, not outside of relived you’re-alive clinging that happens on the hunts or keeping warm when they sleep. “You must want something for yourself once all this monster hunting nonsense is over with.” He adds, trying to ignore the _I’m right here_ that hangs in the air.

He hopes Geralt doesn’t decide to suddenly get good at subtleties, but needn’t have worried.

“I want nothing.” Geralt’s voice is cold and sure and Jaskier turns his eyes away, digging bath salt from under his fingernails.

“Well, who knows.” He says before he can think better of it, because he didn’t prepare himself for the familiar sting of Geralt refusing to use his words to admit they mean anything to each other, so he’s a bit reckless in his hurt. “Maybe someone out there will want you.” He adds because he’s a fool and he walks to the tub to crouch by it and lean on the opposite end of Geralt, trying for an exaggerated pout so they can laugh it off and looking into those golden eyes.

They’re lovely, although there is a poem or two of dozen about how Geralt looks after taking his potions, skin deadly pale and eyes black as night and the veins spread under his skin like spider web. He still loves the golden eyes and silver hair the most though.

Geralt averts his eyes for a moment before repeating:

“I need no one.” His words stab at Jaskier’s hear worse than any knife or claw and he tasted both so he _knows_, and then Geralt twists it when he adds: “And the last thing I want is someone needing me.”

Jaskier looks at the murky water, long past worrying about getting hard just because Geralt’s naked and in the same room as him. Comes with no longer being a teenager, he supposes.

“Yet – here we are.” He’s close to begging and it’s pathetic, but he need some closure.

Something, _anything_ to decide what he should do moving forward or he’ll lose him mind.

Geralt _hmms_ and looks around, water sloshing in the tub and then he frowns before barking:

“Where _the fuck_ are my clothes, Jaskier?”

Jaskier stutters up explanation and waits with a baited breath for Geralt to refuse, to tell him to fuck off and that he won’t come to Cintra. He waits, but it doesn’t come, so he swallows down his heartbreak and decided to be happy with what he has.

Geralt doesn’t seem to want him, intimacy or anything domestic, but Jaskier can work with that. Witcher didn’t seem to want a friend either, but he’s pretty sure that’s exactly what they are today. Yeah, it took a decade and Jaskier’s heart being broken time after time, but if being friends is all what Geralt can accept right now, he can deal with it.

He’s not even thirty, he can give it some more time. Witcher are long-lived, he understands it might take time to get used to something new.

He tries not to count his own years, he buys nice creams and oils and feels glad he never told Geralt his birthday date and doesn’t celebrate it.

* * *

Just because Jaskier knows Geralt is the kindest soul he ever met doesn’t mean it didn’t take him ages to learn to understand his kindness. Right now, for example, when they stray a little on their way to Cintra because Geralt used up some herb that grows only on top this small mountain. It’s not how Jaskier wanted to spend his day, climbing after Geralt because it’s much too steep for Roach, but he deals with it.

In the afternoon, his rewarded with a clearing full of herbs for Geralt to gather, but also the best fir trees to, _say_, gather up sap to cover his lute where a scratch appeared when someone tried to stab Jaskier and he used his case as shield. He’s even more sure there is some magic going on with it so he does his best to care for the instrument. Which he did even without magic, because it’s a first thing he got because of Geralt and it always makes him remember the cave at the edge of the world and the moment he decided that _yes,_ this silly witcher who only grunts and frowns will be the one he learns to love since the Mark doesn’t want to be ignored.

He’s not sure when the part about teaching Geralt how to _love_ _him_ because an afterthought.

So Jaskier keeps his love-songs in his head and only hums, repairing the lute and wondering at the perfect sheen of the sap before going to a fresh coat on a whole instrument. He’s pretty sure Geralt only needed a few flowers to dry, but they stayed until Jaskier was ready because there was a sudden gust of warm wind and the lute was dry as sand.

He pointedly doesn’t thank Geralt, who doesn’t seem to like the word sometimes and he’s already on thin with the bath-talk and the Cintran ball, but he vows to make that ball the best time for the witcher.

Of course, it doesn’t work.

Mousesack recognized Geralt so Jaskier can’t give him the peaceful evening he planned anymore, but he tries to think that at least witcher has a possible friend to talk with and people are much more invested in cock-measuring each other and drinking than paying attention to a witcher.

Then Queen Calanthe arrives and doesn’t spare him a glance before mocking him already. Jaskier remembers why he run from nobility, but smiles and plays as she commanded and tries to keep from anymore nobles who might be out for his blood.

Then there is argument about manticores and Jaskier grimaces at the expected bloodshed, but then-

_The Butcher of Blaviken bleats utter nonsense!_

The words ring in silence because Jaskier’s hand grip his lute hard enough that the never-snapping strings bite painfully into his fingers. He doesn’t miss the was Geralt’s eye snap to him, immediately, the silent _I told you so_ in them not just braking Jaskier’s heart, but grinding the shards into powder.

Because Geralt is so _good_, so _kind_, and yet sees himself as such a _monster_. He still doesn’t know what happened in Blaviken, never asked, just like he never asked about the gnarly scar right by Geralt’s neck that probably came closest to killing him since they met and Jaskier wasn’t even by his side then because he went for a lecture in fucking Oxenfurt and could’ve had no idea that Geralt-

Jaskier knows enough though. He saw the broach at the hilt of Geralt’s sword and on a few nasty occasions when witcher dealt with poison strong enough to affect him, he remember hearing names. Visenna, Renfri, few others... he knows the common rumours as a bard, but he also knows rumours of the high nobles and their servants from visiting Oxenfurt and even Lettenhove when he get his masochistic bounds of homesickness.

Jaskier knows one Renfri died in Blaviken and that one mage names Stregobor known for killing little girls because of a stupid prophecy was involved in the whole mess. He sees the broach on the sword and hears what haunts Geralt in delirium and _Jaskier knows enough_.

He sees Geralt never really accept that people don’t fear him, still tense when they reach new towns and always on guard when they go collect payment. He used to take it personally and make his songs most glorious in history, but he knows better now. It’s not him Geralt doesn’t believe in him, it’s not even other people.

It’s _himself_ he doesn’t believe to be worth of trust and forgiveness and Jaskier’s wonders sometimes if Destiny itself saw the injustices of witcher’s life and bound Jaskier to him so he could fix it, at least a little. He could happily live with such fate.

So he looks at Geralt and shakes his head, pleading with him and begging a silent _No_, don’t let them win, don’t play into their stupid little games. Nobles fat on a kill brought to them on silver platter and smacking training dummies in the safety of their manors, what the fuck do they know of the world and its monsters and what torments people? What gives them the right to judge Geralt, who risks his life time and time again, for little pay and no gratitude?!

He hisses when the strings cut into his fingers and drip with blood and mutters an apology to other musicians before walking to the side. Cuts are shallow, but sting enough as he drinks up alcohol and puts them in his mouth.

So he watcher Geralt placate the nobles, up until his mockery of a toast and Jaskier gives a token _But the songs_ to the witcher because this is _Cintra_, the worst place in the Continent to show any sympathy towards elves. He knows it, and that’s why he added stupid embellishments to his lute to make it look more human-made.

He could kiss Eist for changing the subject, but then Geralt is invited to sit by Queen side and things only get worse and worse from there and it’s all Jaskier’s fault, because he brought the witcher here, because he was naive enough to think that Queen’s ball will be prestigious enough to make people civil toward Geralt. As he didn’t know better!

And yet, a little while ago, just before Queen returned, there was Jaskier with a cuckold he didn’t even recognize threatening him and Geralt was by his side in moments. There is much to be said about his _method_ of keeping Jaskier safe, but the one thing that bard tries to keep under indignant outrage is, _why_.

Geralt acts kind without explaining it and leaving him to figure it all out, like noticing the trees and the sap because gods forbid witcher _tell him_ about those. But some things have such loaded implications that Jaskier doesn’t trust himself to chose any option.

Because was Geralt anyone else, he’d think the cock-blocking was to keep Jaskier untouched by anyone beside the witcher. His small, indulgent smiles don’t help the situation at all, but then everything went to shit and Jaskier never got a chance to ask about it.

Not before hedgehog knight, before Pavetta, before the fight and the storm and the marriage and the Child Surprise.

Not before Jaskier has a women clutching at his hand like a vice and had to rip it out so he can follow Geralt as he tries to run. He eavesdrops, because he doesn’t trust Mousesack after he couldn’t do a thing when Pavetta went crazy with power, which are _apparently_ a born-with thing as much as the signs Geralt uses, if he’s hearing correctly, but then Mousesack says:

_You should stay too._

And Jaskier’s heart stops.

It would work, many nobles and kings and Queens tries to make Geralt their personal guard he never agreed, but it could work here. Calanthe is ruthless enough to not push witcher away and he has a feeling Pavetta and Duny would be kind enough to tolerate him, but Jaskier can’t stay here, not when his parents still didn’t give up on him taking up his title and plan another betrothal _when his silly phase_ _is over_-

_I’m getting out of here._

Luckily Geralt is predictably not one to stay with people, but before Jaskier can relax, he adds:

_Alone._

And _fuck that_ sideways with a broomstick!

He runs to the corridor and pushed pas the mage, lute hitting uncomfortably at his back as he tries to keep up with the witcher. He’s short of breath when they reach the courtyard and Geralt’s going to stables and Jaskier will lose him then and he just-

He has enough. Maybe it’s the talk, the mixed signals, something else, or just stress of the evening, but he run up to Geralt and holds onto his arm even when all it does it grad him along.

“Will you stop running! The Child of Surprise won’t, like, crawl out of her womb like a _striga_ an–!”

Geralt stops only to turn, his fist hitting Jaskier’s chest so fast he can’t event tense his muscles to try and soften the blow and he can hear something _breaking_ and he can’t breath for a moment. He sags against Geralt’s arm, still clutching at his clothes and lands heavily on his knees.

“Fuck you- Geralt!” he gasps. “Heard my- ribs break-! The fuck-?!” he looks up at him finally and there is a strange mix of guilt and panic and something crazed and Geralt’s shoulder snaps up in a jerky move once, as if he was trying to protect his neck and Jaskier remember the gnarly scar he knows nothing about and rests against his legs with a shallow sigh. “We’re _both_ riding- you utter dick.” He says, still unable to breath too deeply and trying to ignore the pain.

It’s not the worst in his life, but it still sucks. At least Geralt seems to have calmed down a little and let’s Jaskier ride on Roach, sideways and leaning against his broad chest and even holding him with one arm to keep him from slipping off.

It’s nice and Jaskier can hide his face in crook of witcher’s neck and he still smells of chamomile and that’s probably why he says:

“Maybe you’ll find your soulmate, after all.”

It earns him a surprised huff so he counts that as a victory and makes sure to take shallow breaths as he explains:

“Maybe it’s the child. There are platonic ones, you know, despite _all the fucking world_ so obsessed with sex ones. Maybe it’s just destiny being a bitch about being ignored and deciding to force your hand.” He grimaces, because suddenly it hits a little close to home and the words from years ago rang in his head again, _The lion's outside of your door, the wolf's in your bed_. Gods, he hopes it’s now that he thinks it is, because he’d hate to be the reason for Geralt’s apparent misery. “Or maybe I’m wrong. You can still, I don’t know, visit once a decade and send some coins. I don’t think there’s a rulebook to Child Surprises.” He shrugs weakly and rubs at his chest and then pales.

His gloves are gone. It must’ve been the maelstrom or the fighting, but it doesn’t matter because his Mark is out in the open and Geralt can see in the dark much better than a human. He hopes he doesn’t see well enough to see his own pendant on Jaskier’s skin, a mirror of one hanging from his neck.

“Are you hurt?” Geralt asks suddenly and Jaskier shakes his head, pulling the sleeve down and praying Geralt will just think he’s dirty. The magic trashes the place, it’s a good enough excuse, right?

“So maybe.” He starts, to change the subject before witcher gets suspicious, because bastard can probably feel or smell Jaskier’s nerves. “It won’t be bad. You might get a place to stay, between months on the road. It’d be nice, if only for a few decades, right? How old are you, couple hundreds, it’d be a nice change...” he’s getting used to talking despite his broken ribs so he a risks taking a look at Geralt.

Nothing could’ve prepared him for the softness of the melted gold, all the attention on him and it’s a look he’s never seen before, but can only describe it as _longing_.

He tells himself that’s it the idea of stable home and nothing else, because in what world would someone like him be worthy of Geralt’s longing?

They ride through the night and morning, only stopping when sun comes up high and scorching. Geralt gets them a room in an inn and ever calls for a healer to help Jaskier, who uses the moment of time alone to grab for new pair of gloves from his lute case. The healer fixes his ribs and Geralt’s already out on a hunt to pay him for it, and it’s all very kind and so roundabout, so Jaskier decides to forgive him and not make a song about wolf that bites the hand that feeds him.

But his ribs are still broken and he gets a fever and his sleep is marred by nightmarish visions.

There is a little girl, her dirty hair clumping together in ropes and toughened at the ends like spikes.

She shovel food with her hands that still have blood on them, her nails dark with it.

There are scars on her and when she stand, tips of two swords drag after her on the floor.

He wakes up in cold sweat, trying to not think about how _he_ _was there too,_ taking care of the little thing, because that's just pathetic and he’s not ready think about the implications. It’s one thing to love Geralt, but to want such – domesticity, when witcher just made it clear he wishes for no such thing with Jaskier, it’s just pathetic.

It’s days later when Jaskier remembers Geralt’s cock-blocking and his musings about it, but it’s seems like it’s too late now so he never asks.

* * *

“Why do you do it?” Geralt asks one day, waiting for Jaskier to jump from a window he used to sneak into his room and get his things without going inside. The lady he made cheat on her husband with was sister of the innkeeper and they need to run again.

Jaskier lowers himself into witcher’s offered shoulder then lands on the ground, before giving him a worried look.

“Because to be a _bard_ I need my _lute_ and-”

Geralt shakes his head, and there is a familiar frown on his face, so Jaskier just sighs and lets himself be pulled onto Roach so they can bail.

They’re out of town before Geralt finally asks: “Why sleep around, when you have a Mark?”

And Jaskier’s heart stops which he knows now Geralt can hear. _Fuck_.

“So you saw it.” He says, flinching when strong fingers brush a glove on his left hand.

“Suspected it. I didn’t see the shape, just something on your hand after the-“

“After Cintra.” Jaskier supplies, because he might not agree with Geralt’s denial about the Child Surprise, but he can be understanding. He gets a grunt of agreement.

“I smelt the Mark, then. Skin smells – different, where it’s Marked, but the leather covered it.” Geralt explains, and it’s one of the new things that starter after the Cintra Disaster. “Got curious why...”

Geralt talks more, lets him ride on Roach, recounts his monster fights and explains things. He even started showing Jaskier some simple moves for self-defence and gifted him a small dagger that took home in his boot. It’s like Jaskier broke some layer of his defences, but he has no idea how he did it (he wishes he did, so he can tear every single last one of them).

He just hopes it’s not Geralt tolerating him because at some point he expects Jaskier to bail on him with his soulmate.

“You sing all about the perfect matches.” Geralt continues, which means Jaskier was quiet for too long.

That’s new, too, because Jaskier is finally not scared of Geralt telling him to go away if there is a second of silence between them. He knows him better than that.

So he hears the unspoken _Don’t you want to find yours?_

Jaskier takes a moment to chose his words.

“I like sex and I like people and making them happy.” He starts, still hugging Geralt’s back and glad he gets to keep his secret for a while longer. “And for your information, _sex_ doesn’t happen that often. You know what does?” he cling to him closer, because this if personal and important to him and he wonder if Geralt will think him naive. “The complacent fucks and cunts, so happy with a soulmate tied to them by a leash, see them with me and for a moment actually fear losing their comfortable little lives. So they might try for a little while, to be decent! Bring a flower, buy a nice dinner, go for a walk! Something!” he deflates a little after his short rant, because he talked about it so many times and is just _tired_.

Geralt doesn’t mock him. He still hold his left hand, delicate sheep-skin of Jaskier’s gloves against tough leather of his own, the only barrier between witcher’s skin and the Mark that Jaskier decided belong to him, and strokes it with little circles.

Jaskier sighs and closes his eyes, resting his head between the studs of Geralt’s armour, a move practiced enough that it’s easy as breathing now.

“It’s probably stupid, but if my questionable reputation is a cost to someone’s shred of happiness, I don’t care.” He says into his shoulder, knowing witcher will hear it.

“I noticed that.” Geralt’s voice is low and soft and he grabs at Jaskier’s hand for a moment, a silent thanks for all the bard did to him and Jaskier understands it for what it is.

Geralt doesn’t like thanking people anymore than he liked being thanked by them. He probably thinks it’s just his duty to serve them and that he can never do something worthy of thanks, the blind idiot.

* * *

Things are good, until they aren’t.

Then there’s a djinn and Jaskier can’t breathe any more than he believes Geralt would let him die, so he feels safe despite the pain and the blood and bile in his mouth. He _trusts_ Geralt.

Then he wakes up to Yennefer and her scheme and can only think of running, to find Geralt, to make sure he’s safe because no sorceress like this can be safe to seek help from.

Then his out and Geralt’s is there, thank all the gods he’s safe and sound. Jaskier’s babbling, because if he stops talking he’s gonna scream from sheer panic and shock, but then-

Geralt goes back and-

The house collapse and-

Jaskier’s ripping the glove and falls to his knees because-

The Mark’s there, as black as ever, but Geralt’s-

Geralt’s dead, it should be _gray_ in mourning because he was his _soulmate_, Jaskier _chose him_, but-

His Mark is black and he can’t tell if it’s old blood from his sickness or he bit his tongue to keep from wailing in agony too hard and-

He can’t, he chose Geralt and if _this isn’t it_, he doesn’t want it, because-

He can’t, not again, it hurts so much and he can’ live through it again-

He’s not sure he’ll live trough it _now_-

And then he’s pulled to his feet and dragged to the window and-

Geralt’s alive, and Jaskier can finally breathe, but-

He’s alive and _fucking Yennefer_, what the _actual_-

He can breathe, but each breath makes his broken heart beat and bleed out, but-

He turn away, because he can’t-

He turns away and-

He can’t, and he want to run but he trips over his own feet and-

He can’t, he can’t, he can’t-!

_He can’t breathe again_-

* * *

He wakes up in a familiar tent and Chireadan tells him he fainted. Geralt sits next to him and Jaskier tries to feel anything but void and heartache. At least his glove is back on and when he feels for it, he catches elf’s eyes and they’re full of pity.

Well, _fuck him_, at least he’s badly in love with someone _nice_ and not a crazy bitch who-

“The djinn was mine.” Geralt won’t look at him and his hand keeps brushing again his tight. “I did this to you.“ his other hands moves in the vague direction of Jaskier’s throat but never comes even close to touching.

It might be for the better, right now.

“It’s fine.” Jaskier forces out and takes a deep breath, before locking all his misery in a box and hiding it away so he can fake a convincing smile. “You’re alive, Geralt, and I’m fine. Nothing worse than a monster hunt gone bad, right?” he laughs, and it sounds empty and witcher must’ve heard it to, but he doesn’t asks.

They leave.

Jaskier finds out later there’s _a mark_ on Geralt’s leg now, fresh and black as ink, three berries and sharp contour of a lily, and he bites his tongue not to say how it looks like _burns_ and _cuts_.

He chokes on a laugh when sometime later Geralt says Yennefer never saw he own before it was gone with whatever gave mage’s their ethereal beauty, so he can’t even ask to be sure, because the irony is just too perfect and yet his heart breaks for him still.

He tightens his gloves and then buys a bottle of liquid lacquer in the shade of his skin so he will never risk destroying whatever Geralt found in Yennefer.

He tells himself he can be happy as long as his witcher is and it’s true, he supposes.

He never knew you could be happy with a broken heart, but he’s learns it every day.

* * *

“_Self-fulfilling prophecy, you never fail to comfort me..._”

He wrote it in that month after Josabelle, pouring all his suffering and heartbreak into words as he made himself a promise. Like any of his promises, he never kept it.

“_In this world filled with cheating mothers, absent fathers, leaving lovers... Angry brothers, lonely daughters, forlorn lovers... I swear to you, I'll never love again._”

He’s in a inn, sitting by a window. Geralt is on a hunt and they have _separate rooms_ now, because Yennefer has a habit of being thrown their way. He wishes he could say it’s her doing, but she’s a tiny bit more exasperated with every meeting, even if she’s still ever willing to share Geralt’s room for a night.

Maybe if it was her doing, it would’ve been easier to deal with his heartbreak. Maybe it would’ve been only worse, because now he at least has the clarity.

Geralt doesn’t want him, doesn’t want someone like him, human and weak and read to drop dead at any problem.

He used to cherish how much closer they got and how Geralt seemed realize Jaskier might need a comfort every so often. Now he’s left wondering if it’s a pit for his short and fragile life because he doesn’t want his blood on his hands.

“_Self hatred grows in me like cancer... I can’t locate its whereabouts but its feeding on its host._” He plays with melody for a while, humming the words so they stay in his mind and then testing the next lines. “_I expected him to have the answers-_”

He frowns as he can’t think up anything, the empty melody grating on his mind. He puts his lute down and sighs.

It’s all fine. Geralt found himself a _soulmate_ by his own _choice_, just like Jaskier did with him. It’s fine, he has no right to Geralt’s heart since he never said a thing.

It’s fine, because if he shows that _it’s not_ witcher will feel guilty and he can’t let him.

Geralt already shoulders guild of so many others, he can’t let his own silly, unrequited love add to it.

Not if it would make Geralt feel bad about finally caring about someone. He just can’t.

He can deal with his own misery, but being the cause of Geralt’s-

He just _can’t_.

* * *

The dragon hunt cannot be going worse, at least that’s what he thinks the first night as Geralt goes to fuck Yennefer again.

At least he let him share his tent. It’s pathetic to go back to this, to forcing the smallest things into something he’ll be happy for, because otherwise the gaping void will consume him whole, but if it lets Geralt be happy, he can deal with it a while longer (as long as need be, until his dying breath).

He’s half-asleep when tent opens and it’s dark enough he can’t see anything so he grabs for a dagger under his pillow by a habit, throwing it before he forms a conscious thought. Geralt grabs it and puts in on the ground before sitting by his side, stiff as a boulder.

Jaskier sits up, rubbing at his eyes and hisses when he used hand covered in lacquer. It’s not bad for him since he only uses it at nights, but it’s course to the touch and likes to flake off when he moves his hand to much.

“Why’d she fuck off this time?” he asks before yawning and he’s sleepy enough to lean against Geralt and put his head on his arm. Yennefer seems less exasperate and more irritated each time and took to leaving Geralt by a portal, leaving Jaskier to pick up the pieces. As if he needed a reason to hate her.

But Geralt smells like sickly sweet lilies and Jaskier flinches back with a groan, leaning against the tree they put the tent by, bark still biting trough the thick fabric.

“If she-“

“It was a mistake.” Geralt interrupts him and his eyes are the only thing bright in the darkness and they look-

A little panicked. Like after Cintra, like after the djinn, as if a world he runs from caught up to him and he sees the mess he made.

“Hey, come on... what happened?” he doesn’t come closer, he can’t when Geralt still reeks of her, but he put hand on his back to stroke the stiff muscles, trying to get him to relax a little.

“She keeps asking how we find each other. I’ve tried to- I can’t. Don’t know how, but I want to-.”

Jaskier makes a face, because _of course_ Geralt would come to him for help with fucking Yennefer. Just his luck. Or maybe destine saw how long he was taking, saw it as cowardice and decided to make him suffer until he does something about his Mark.

“It’s easy.” He mumbles, looking away and pulling his hand back. He’s still half-asleep and exhausted and he’s not ready to help Geralt be with someone else, so before he can stop himself before he says: “I kinda have your mark, but I _chose_ to bind us. Let’s be happy!” he throws his hands with a flourish for the effect and-

There is a _crack_. He knows it’s the lacquer and curses under his breath, but before he can pull his hand back to check the damage, there are fingers holding his wrist tight enough to bruise, to make his bones squeak against each other.

“The fuck-?!” he sputters, trying to pull his hand but then Geralt reaches with his other hand and easily picks at broken lacquer and-

“Why?”

Jaskier’s heart stops and his blood runs cold. He’s probably make for a good vampire, at least the ones that are completely brainless.

He doesn’t need light to know what part of his Mark was uncovered. It doesn’t matter, to be honest, because it’s clearly enough to let Geralt see with his stupid mutated eyes what it is.

The shape is hard to mistake for anything else, sharp lines and angles forming a pattern he saw every day for almost a century.

“Why _what_, Geralt?” he snaps and puts a foot on his tight to get leverage as he pulls to get his hand back. It slips and his heel goes over Geralt’s mark and Jaskier’s hand slip out of his hold.

He lands on the bedroll with a huff, but quickly sits up.

“Tell me, Geralt, why what?!” he turns to him, even if he can barely see him if not for those haunting, beautiful eyes. “Why I never told you, when time after time you said Marks are bullshit?! When it took breaking my ribs before you stopped fleeing Cintra and _bond of destiny_?!” he’s breathing hard and his hands are clenched into fists, more lacquer breaking off. “Or maybe when I thought you died for her, but no, you only _bound_ yourself to her!”

He grabs as whatever is closes and pulls, wanting to throw it at Geralt so he will fucking respond. He finds only his bedroll and blanket, pulling futilely few times before his arms fall limp on his sides.

“Or maybe,” he whispers, head down. “When it took you a decade to even admit we’re maybe friends?” he forces himself to look witcher in the eyes again and doesn’t hide his tears. “I’ve spent more of my life by your side than away from you!” he hits at his chest and it feels like hitting a rock, so he grabs as his shirt and moved to kiss him, in the dark landing more on his chin than lips, but his intent is obvious. Geralt still doesn’t move. “I did everything I could to be less of a burden for you, to help you, to make your life easier! What more could I ever do to make you care about me?!” he hits at him again, but his fists are loose and shaking. “Tell me, what can I do to make you stop chasing her and finally give me a-a time of your day! Whatever i-it is!”

He curls on himself, clutching at his arms, fingernails biting into his skin.

“It’s not me you-.”

“He speaks at last!” Jaskier chokes on a laugh and sniffles. “Not, It’s not yo_ur bloody name _on my skin, but it’s your witchery necklace!” he breaths in and finally admits: “I chose you! I chose to be with you, to care about you, to fall in love with you! Not anyone else! I don’t care if that’s what destiny planned for me, that’s what I chose!”

There is silence, beside his rapid breathing and sniffling. He takes a full minute of it before he kicks at Geralt weakly.

“Fuck off. If you’re gonna just _sit there_ and _be silent_ then go do it somewhere else!”

“It’s my tent, you know.” Geralt doesn’t move, so Jaskier kicks him again, harder. It’s probably like a fly bumping into you, but he doesn’t care.

It’s _the sentiment_ that matters.

“I don’t care! After everything, you owe me not catching pneumonia on a fucking mountainside!” he kicks at him a few more times, and finally Geralt moves. Jaskier flops onto the bedroll and turns his back to him.

It wasn’t supposed to go like that. He was never supposed to know, not like that!

He stiffens when he hears Geralt crouch and pick something up, and for a moment his afraid of the witcher or the first time in his life. The dagger, he has his Mark, he’s a _liability_-

Then he hears Geralt choke on air and the dagger fall to the ground.

He’s gone before Jaskier can even sit up, so he doesn’t try. He curls onto himself and swallows down a sob, once, twice, and then laughs in hysteria.

The melody in his head finally found its word.

“_Self hatred grows in me like cancer... I can’t locate its whereabouts but its feeding on its host. I expected him to have the answers... I thought I'd teach him how to love me, now I’m what he fears the most._”

***

He wakes up alone. He hears sounds of fighting and ignores them, turning to leave the mountain. He takes the shortcut again, because Geralt would expect him to do the opposite and he feels like death would be a mercy for both of them at this point, but after a day he’s back in the inn.

The inn Borch told them everything, where Yennefer popped up again. At least her sword-happy sponsor knight is dead. Server them _both_ right.

He has enough coins for a dinner or food for the road, so he buys only the latter and walks again.

His doesn’t know where his gloves are and he doesn’t care.

* * *

The inn is shitty, but he literally couldn’t walk another moment. He sits in the corner, fully intending on being ignored and napping by the wall before he’s back to _running away again_ when someone recognizes him and asks for The Song.

His fingers fumbles at familiar notes and his own voice chokes him at first words of _that _song, so he settles for what was echoing through his head as he walked.

“_I just poured my heart out, there's bits of it on the floor. And I take what's left of it and rinse it under cold water, and call him up for more..._” his voice is still wobbly and people are staring, but it’s not the first time he’ll make himself out to be a spurned lover.

It works well to find him a warm bed and body for a night.

What’s the difference that this time it’s all true?

“_He grabs my wrist, as my fingers turn into angry fists, and I whisper why can't you love me, I'll change for you... I'll play the part._” He sniffles and fuck, he’s actually _crying_ and people are really staring now, but he can’t stop, it’s like a dam broke and it will drown him if he closes his mouth. “_And I-I say baby, I feel stupid to c-call you, but I'm lonely... a-and I don't think you meant it when you sa-aid you c-couldn't love me... and I-I thought maybe if I k-kissed you like h-her lips do, y-you'd feel it too..._”

A women grabs him by an arm and pulls him up, then drags him into a room. She says something, but he can’t hear her over the the buzzing in his ears and his own sobbing.

He doesn’t choke out that he has no money, but she waves it off, leaning on the wall and patting his back.

_Déjà vu_ hits him like an ocean and he breaks apart.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst and suffering continue as we get a look into Geralt's mind trough his life with Jaskier until the breakup.

Geralt was born with a soulmark.

His mother stole it out of his skin before leaving him at Kaer Morhen. It wasn’t done the usual way, hot metal distorting the Mark into scars. It was taken along with his skin, the wound cauterized so nothing would remain, not even a broken shadow to play at finding shapes in.

Geralt’s spent the rest of his childhood wondering if his life burned down with it. He still isn’t sure.

* * *

He’s trained at Kaer Morhen, one of the lucky ones to finish it alive, and then sent into the world.

First monster he finds has a human face. A man, well-fed and spilling from his doublet, twice the size of a young girl he’s dragging through the streets, a wisp of a thing in white dress already darkened with mud.

Her back is on display, small empty bells of lily of the valley swaying along her spine.

His doublet is missing a piece at the front, a circle of skin shaven clean, a black skyrocket bloom spread out like a star.

There is another man huddled between two building who jumps at the groom as they pass. He gets his stomach opened with his own battered knife for his trouble and Geralt start moving.

Groom throws the girl at a cart by the merchant, because he wants a _test drive_ to make sure her _garden_ is free of _pests._

A sword that Geralt was trained to use as precisely as seamstress her needles suddenly feel clumsy as it sinks into the monster, human flesh squelching as he has to hack at it to get to the spine, blood spraying around. The girl screams and vomits and faints, air tick with bile and sour notes of pure terror.

Geralt learns later that most people around here get flowers as their Mark, so the pairs are matched by the mirrored blooms. Nobody could point him to the blind idiot responsible for the match he just ended.

He walks away between stones and screams and washes the blood off in the river.

For the first time he feels grateful for the scar on his arm.

He doesn’t change his mind for a century. Not when he sees more monsters falling to silver and steel alike. Not when he sees people drunk on their happiness.

He keeps to his opinion and simply creates map of places to avoid, roads twisting across woodlands, far from any towns obsessed with Marks so much their minds twist as if under Axii, obsessed with obeying imaginary rules.

* * *

Then Renfri shows off her bare skin with such wrecked, bitter pride, like a piece of glass left to melt in the sun that’s breaking rays of light into bright rainbows in vengeance. She wonders if that’s inhuman about her as well.

Geralt tries to refute it. Renfri asks if that would mean he’s still human, after all.

Geralt doesn’t know the answer then.

Nor when he kills her.

Nor when he leaves Blaviken amidst stoning.

Nor any year later.

* * *

The bard is- a _contradiction_, since the very first moment Geralt sees him, prancing around a dirty inn with an almost convincing smile plastered on his face, air sickeningly thick with scent of pure fury coming off of him.

It smells like peppermint, like strong alcohol and like spoilage, sharp and dizzying, biting at his nose, and this man, _this boy_, is bathed in like a vampire in blood.

Then he comes up to Geralt and makes a nuisance of himself and _flirts_ with him, of all the things, his scent mellowing out with low buzz of sweet spices that make Geralt lose his appetite. He knows what kind of people want witchers and he’s not about to become a thrill to whisper about by a boy getting his first taste of the wide, open world.

He is still a witcher, and the boy’s eyes are sunken deep into his face, dark circles barely hidden by some paste a shade too dark for too keen eyes. His cheeks are hollow, skin pale and paper-thin, dark veins spreading in dark contrast.

He’s only got one coin left, but he knows all too well it’s better than nothing, so he leaves it at the table and then leaves the inn himself, ignoring the voice chasing him.

Geralt is a witcher. He’s supposed to serve humanity – they _all_ are, aren’t they? He can hunt easily for himself and this boy is clearly in need. No matter how sharply his voice cuts as it bring up his new moniker.

_You take no prisoners, so I hear._

At least it gets him a job, even as it stirs the guilt that burns in his chest, as bright as the day he left Blaviken and only more painful with each day.

* * *

But the boy stays.

_Jaskier_ stays – after Geralt punched the breath out of him, albeit at a safer distance; as he bathes in indignant fury _again_ as elves beat them up, all of that at their treatment of not himself, but _the witcher_ tied to his back; and then as he writes a song about Geralt, who has no idea what to do with a strange, passing scent that wafts off of the bard and then seems to cling, as if a perfumed handkerchief was stuffed into his pocket.

Sharp like fresh citrus juice, but sweet like melting sugar.

_It comes and goes across the years, often buried under other things, other emotions, other people whose scent clings to the bard, but whenever Geralt thinks it’s gone for good, it will explode anew._

* * *

The bard smells of love – petrichor and warm earth and sun under the trees – smells of love always and no matter the circumstances. He loves men and women he flirts with, he loves the good food and nice rooms, he loves pretty flowers blooming ahead of season. He seems so in love with the world that it pours out of him like a waterfall flowing freely, little droplets spraying all around.

Geralt doesn’t understand that – sees to many human faces on the monsters he has to slay, sees so many monsters come to life under people’s hands before the same palm waves at him to kill it with sharp silver. He doesn’t understand loving so indiscriminately and certainly doesn’t think the world or many of the people deserving of such sentiment. Even if Jaskier seems happy to just give and _give_ and never takes more than anyone deigns to throw his way, rarely asking for anything.

It suits his way of life, probably. Nobody likes a greedy minstrel.

But Geralt also doesn’t remembers the last time he had someone smell so sweet around him, nor for so long, so he doesn’t say a word. He simply ignores the flirting, because it seems to be the only way of human interaction Jaskier’s capable of, and basks in the sweet, soft smell and the simple affection.

Tries to remember if maybe this is what life was supposed to be – before the theft of half his Soul, before the training and the trials, before monsters leapt out of the stories and came to life.

* * *

Jaskier touches him. It’s- _different_ than Geralt is used to.

He’s used to paying for sex and whatever it entails (to overpaying so he can just lie down with a warm body close to him and them more to keep it from leaving the room). It’s still underlain with fear clumsily masked with perfumes, with tense muscles under soft skin.

He’s used to contact during the fights, to pain and bruises it leaves, to claws and fangs, the dry or slimy skin, the rough scales and sharp spikes.

There are also rumors. About witchers spreading whatever disease is local or their infertility. Usually people are too scared to do more than shy away or spit at him, but there has been a few bold enough to try and bed him to _steal such a convenient affliction_ for themselves.

Geralt is not _so desperate_ to agree to all of such offers – he staunchly refuses any desperate wives or husbands surrounded by too many mouth to feed (and only offers a recipe that would help them or goes to quietly _deal_ with the less cooperative spouses) and regularly disappoints whores bold enough to ask about it outright (but shared two herbs helpful in such matters – to prevent any unwanted consequences and to end them soon enough). Men looking for an easy way of keeping their lives fun and reputations safe are a different history – not only for the way they clearly force themselves to keep close, as Geralt gets paid to just sit and suffer through a hand on his arm, but also for the vicious satisfaction at the thought of _them_ suffering the consequences and realising they paid for nothing.

Jaskier seems to so clearly fall under the second category, with the way he flirts as if it’s the only language he knows. It’s the one explanation that makes sense and Geralt feels he got proof only two days after they meet.

They keep to easy road after Posada and meet a merchant on her way there, with cart-full of food and supplies guarded by a man with a crossbow. Jaskier barely wastes any time before he’s charming the woman and Geralt has to _drag him away_ when he decides it went for long enough – which is after the merchant shares some jerky and fruit with them, happy to hear _the Devil of Posada_ is gone and she won’t have to pay for armed escort again – because you can never be too careful with those monsters (the way Jaskier reeks of indignant fury at those words might’ve influenced Geralt’s decision just a little).

“Hope you don’t count on the rumours keeping you safe from bastards.” He says later that evening, when Jaskier insists on sitting right by him in from of the fire and pressing their shoulders together.

Jaskier has the nerve to send him a confused look, before his eyes slip to witcher’s arm, wandering along a scar on his wrist.

“I won’t make you infertile, no matter how long you touch me.” Geralt pushes him away and stakes the fire, keeping his eyes down to avoid seeing the disappointment that’s sure to show up, if not on Jaskier’s face then in his scent.

But all he smells is that citrus-sugar mix again, with a bit of salt sneaking in.

“You insult me.” Jaskier rolls his eyes, kicking at Geralt’s foot before he huddles closer, putting his head on witcher’s arm before he continues: “I’ll have you know I kept enough honour to drink the vile tea that ensures I leave nothing but pleasant memories, witcher.” He huffs angrily and pushes away. “Also, it’s the _most inane rumour_ I heard in my life and I think I feel _even more_ insulted you thought me dim enough to ever fall for it!” he slaps at Geralt arm before standing up.

He goes to ruffle through the pockets of his doublet, washed and drying out on the branch nearby, before standing by the fire again.

“I’m mighty tempted to keep this to myself now, you know.” he waves his hand around and Geralt notices a small silver broach in his hand, a flat piece adorned with ambers.

He wonders where he got it before growling out: “You did not-!”

Jaskier interrupts him with an airy laugh.

“Why, Geralt, silver _hurts monsters_, does it not?” Jaskier’s tone is sharp and cold as he turns the silver piece in his hand, letting the firelight catch on the surface. “What kind of man would I be, leaving it in a possession of one _so clearly_ oblivious to it? She might hurt herself unawares.” he snorts and throws it at Geralt’s lap. “Besides, her guard was so shit they were asking for it! Keeping a crossbow loaded, he’ll be lucky not kill _himself_.” he grumbles and sits down again, close enough to the witcher to press their knees and thighs together, again.

And Geralt almost forgets how to breath for a moment, conflicted.

The woman was a simple merchant, scared by stories about monsters. The bowman was clearly more for show than his skills, so they didn’t pose any danger to the sylvan or the elves, should they come upon them.

And yet-

It’s _so rare_. To see humans able to even consider that not all things inhuman are monsters to be wiped out. Even more so to witness one choosing to defend such creatures from the people, in the eyes _of some_ clearly betraying their own kind.

So, Geralt swallows down a bit of guilt and doesn’t say a word (and does not wonder if maybe Jaskier’s empathy might one day include him as well).

Jaskier keeps touching him and Geralt continues to allow it.

It’s nothing _intimate_. He’ll tap him on a shoulder as they talk, pull at his hand when he wants attention, kick him under the table when he thinks Geralt made some social blunder, press close to him when they sit by the fire on the cold nights. He allows him, because he cannot remember the last touch that wasn’t paid for or intending to harm or kill and he finds himself too weak to refuse it.

He tries to ignore the memory of lecture at Kaer Morhen, the clinical way they were taught about sex and the warning to keep it up or their bodies might rebel against them – as starved for touch as any human, for all the mutations that seem to try and burn the humanity out of them.

It was lessons like that which made Geralt the more glad they lose their Marks. Makes things easier.

He is _paying_ Jaskier, in a way. Bard’s with him only for his songs and nothing else, so it’s the same as paying coin to a whore, but it’s-

_Different_. Jaskier almost died when they first met and yet not once in their time together did Geralt smell any hint of fear from him. A passing anxiety, when something surprised him, mixed with adrenaline, old sweat mixing with sour notes around him like a little cloud, but passing soon, so soon – _too_ soon, even.

Jaskier touches him and he doesn’t fear him and it- does things, to Geralt. To his mind broken after Blaviken, to his heart guarded after years of being a Witcher.

* * *

Jaskier wears gloves. They keep tips of his fingers free, but are very nicely made and Geralt assumed it was because of the lute (tried not to wonder if this was why Jaskier dared touch him so much, safe behind the leathers of his gloves and witcher’s armour).

He’s proven wrong _very quickly_.

The first place after Posada is a small town. It’s governed by lord rich enough to have paved roads, a proper inn and town hall with a fountain in front of it, but there are pigsties and chicken coops two buildings down.

It’s niceties covering stench of manure and they quickly learn the whole town and its lord match it.

They manage to walk to the steps of an inn with only glares thrown their way, but that’s as far as they get. Two men drinking by the window mutter between themselves as they approach – Geralt catches _Blaviken _and sighs in resignation, watching them stand up and block the doors.

“Hello there, good sirs!” Jaskier’s as chipper as always and Geralt wonders for a moment if he’s truly this oblivious, but then the bard continues: “As nice as _your entourage_ would be, we’re quite fine on our own.” And his smile is as sharp as a blade, tone sweet as poison.

The men barely spare Jaskier a glare before passing him to try and stare Geralt down.

“Ge’ out o’ here!” the one on the left tries for a growl, but it’s pathetic when he’s gut is spilling over his belt and shakes with the effort.

“Ya’ heard ‘im!” beer stinks up the air, makes the hand of the other man sway in air as it points at the witcher.

Geralt stays silent and takes a step back, but then Jaskier walks to the two men and clasps them on their shoulders.

“Now, good sirs, I’m sure there is no need for such hostilities... whatever you might’ve heard about witchers are _simple rumours_, I assure you!” he smiles and slips between them to stand in front of Geralt, who raises a brow at such display.

It’s putting Jaskier against them and is completely unneeded. It’s stupid, like-

_Like goading on elves who tied them up, as they beat them,_ his mind supplies and this close, the sharp peppermint overpowers the stench of the town and makes Geralt dizzy.

It’s _unneeded_ and will only make the situation worse. So why does his heart do a flip at every word that spills from bard’s mouth?

“Why, I’m sure that we can easily put your fears to rest!” Jaskier throws his hands in a flourish and shakes the lute on his back. “I have just a song for it... or we can offer our service, should you have any monsters roaming about and causing trouble you’d wish to relieved you from!” The fury pours off him like smoke and yet his voice is as sweet and cheery as if he was having the time of his life.

Geralt can easily picture the smile he’s must have plastered on his face.

He’s stunned for a moment at _our services,_ not because it’s a lie, but because he’s never been included in such a way. Witcher’s keep away from each other as they work, for the simple reason of the finite amount of monsters and money to be gained by slaying them.

They don’t work together, there is no _them,_ and even if there was it has been years since he set foot in Kaer Morhen. The guilt at turning towns and people hostile to all witchers, not only himself, at making already miserable lives harder for the only people in his life he’d consider akin to a family...

Then he’s pulling Jaskier by the lute-case on his back before a fist can connect with his face.

Bard sputters, anxiety souring his scent.

“Lord Ed’ard has no use for yo’ freaks!” the more sober man stomps closer and Geralt puts a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Espe’lly this one!” he spits at Geralt feet, disgusted. “We need no butcher ‘ere!”

“We’re leaving.” Geralt barks out, free hand still grasping at the strap on Jaskier’s arm, to haul him behind if it comes to a fight. He prefers to simply go away and avoid trouble and he’s not about to let Jaskier suffer on his watch_ again_.

“Tha’s right!” the other man sways as he shakes a fist at them. “Grab your ‘ore and fuck ‘aigh off yo’-!”

The fury comes back even stronger, trumping any other smell as Jaskier lurches forward. Geralt barely holds him in place by the lute, a fist missing the drunk’s head by a hair’s breadth. A moment later a foot digs into the fat stomach and the man crumples to the ground, gasping.

“Fuck _you_, you son of a bitch!” Jaskier bends to slip under the strap and marches up to the other man, pointing a finger, another hand still clutched into a tight fist. “I am a _bard_, you uncultured swine and won’t have you-!”

Geralt throws the lute at his arm and grabs at his sword. It swipes in the air and a hand clutching a knife lands on the street, at Jaskier’s feet, the man in front of him falling to his knees with a scream.

Jaskier stumbled back, throwing Geralt a startled look.

“Monster!” someone shouts behind them and new voices quickly join in.

Geralt raises his hand in a habit, still holding the sword and grinds his teeth as first stones land.

“We’re leaving.” He grinds out and grabs Jaskier by his clothes, pushing him to the front as they make a hasty escape.

It’s silent until they reach the forest where he left Roach and it rings in Geralt’s ears. Jaskier’s never been silent for so long since he met him and it’s been a week. He smells of the utter _nothing_ of a shock and it takes all of Geralt self-control not to try and wonder what causes it. If it was the violence, the wild resentment or if the reality of what he brought upon himself finally hit him.

He’ll run whatever the reason might be, so it’s best not to dwell on it. Probably back to Posada right now, or simply away as soon as they reach a new town. It’s not a surprise, nobody ever stayed long with Geralt and he met a few fools seeking adventure in his life. But none stayed then and who’d chose to share the weight of _Butcher of Blaviken_ across the continent?

But Jaskier doesn’t leave. As soon as Geralt stops holding him up he slides to the ground, not even flinching as the lute is set by his side.

Geralt bites down questions and pleas that threaten to slip from his mouth, instead turning to Roach. It’s best to leave him alone, probably-

“That’s why you left her.” Jaskier finally speaks up and Geralt almost shudders at the sudden stench of blood, cold and metallic, like walking into a butcher’s house. He turns around, fearful he was too late and the knife hit the target, but no, Jaskier seems fine and the few drops of blood on his arm must’ve come from the spray, because the fabric is whole.

He not looking at Geralt, but at Roach behind him and suddenly all Geralt can smell is pure misery, salty and biting at his tongue and lungs, like breathing in sea-water.

“You _knew_ you’d have to run. So you left her here.” Jaskier seems to be talking to himself, but then his eyes snap to Geralt and they _burn_ with fury again.

The changes in his emotions are dizzying and Geralt’s sure he would hate it if it wasn’t for what exactly they change between and why.

“Edward, was it?” Jaskier stands up suddenly, brushing himself off and then picks up the lute. “Hmm, might need a little work... no matter. We have a good week till next village right?” he looks at Geralt again. “And don’t think you won’t be buying me new clothes, you brute! I prefer mine to be a little less bloody, thank you very much...” he rolls his eyes and prattles on as if nothing happened.

Geralt frowns, looking him over and not so subtly sniffing the air, trying to understand him and coming up with nothing, even as he mounts Roach and the three of them gets on the road again. And it is _three_, because Jaskier is trailing after him as if everything was fine. He should be running or at least leaving him, he should be scared, but instead he’s is talking about _tailors_ and _silk_ and _embroidery_ as he tries and fails to hide how much he favours his left side, one of his ankles held stiff.

He doesn’t understand him. He doesn’t think the gloves are for the lute anymore, either.

They might be so his hands don’t end up a bloody mess if he’s as easy to provoke into a fight and so vicious as to twist his own ankle in a kick.

Geralt is lucky to find a contract in the next town, bartering a visit to a tailor for Jaskier since it’s her paying for the hunt and he can deal with less coin if it’ll shut the bard up. It also keeps Jaskier in town as he goes to find the manticore, so it’s a double plus.

When he comes back, Jaskier gained a new shirt and doublet he sings praises about as soon as he notices Geralt. Somehow, he charmed the tailor enough that they are not thrown out as soon as Geralt gets his pay, so he has a moment to look Jaskier over.

“Boots are new too.” He notices, and that launches Jaskier into a new praise of the intricate craftsmanship that finally does get them kicked to the street, but the tailor is blushing and laughing and she does so and invited Jaskier to come back whenever he has coin for it.

They go to an inn, where Jaskier buys them a room, doing an impressive mix of charming and blackmail as he talks about the manticore that Geralt has just slain much too loudly over the counter. The young boy behind it pales, even if the descriptions are all false. It’s only then that Geralt notices _the sound_.

Jaskier’s new shoes have steel heels and points, loud with every step he takes. He’s clearly not used to it, nor to something harder than the soft sheepskin he saw on him before and Geralt doesn’t know whether he feels guilty or touched. His stomach twists into knots either way, so he sits with an ale in the corner and lets Jaskier-

Well. He’s not sure it counts as a performance, as he starts by demanding to hear all the local tunes before he sings them himself, only when the people are properly enchanted starting to sing about Pasada. One table shouts protests at _wasting a song for that monster_, but Jaskier simply sings louder than them and soon they give up. Wearing local clothes and showing curiosity about their customs clearly endeared him enough to be tolerated.

Geralt leaves him when the mixing sounds and smells start getting too much, getting the key thrown at him as Jaskier doesn’t even stop a song. He shrugs and goes up to the room, fully intending to take advantage of relative safety.

He won’t sleep, but meditating on a bed in a locked room is better than doing so in the open forest. He hears Jaskier stumble in as well, _much later_, and resigns himself to letting them both sleep in. One time won’t do much harm and Jaskier deserves it, after – everything, honestly.

It’s only as they sit down for breakfast that Geralt notices bard’s stiff posture and the way he rubs at his ribs whenever he raises his left arm, knuckles red and two fingernails broken, uneven. Then he smells the pain, like heated metal and water boiling.

There is a little mixed with Jaskier’s scented oil alongside the empty, prideful notes.

There is a whole cloud of it, mixed with dry copper of old blood, at one of the tables. The one complaining group from yesterday is huddled in a corner and bend over their meals, but Geralt still can see a split lip, two blackened eyes, a knot of a sling put over a neck and a hastily set broken nose.

It’s the last that he looks at longer, frowning.

The patterns of a local flower, the one Jaskier raved about being _so nicely carved_ onto the metal point of his new shoes _in such details_, is just starting to bloom on bruised skin.

Geralt _does not_ smile into his ale.

He _does_ decide to not leave Jaskier alone with people for too long... for the good of everyone involved.

* * *

They need to pass a marsh one day and Geralt orders Jaskier to keep close as soon as he sees the thick fog and picks up the smell of rot and death on the wind. Then, remembering the town, turn to look at him and ads: “And if something attacks me, _run away from the fog_.”

Jaskier gives him a weak glare, but he’s rubbing his arm and his eyes dart around nervously so Geralt hopes he’s going to listen.

First drowner jumps at him as soon as he breaches the fog and is easy to kill, a fresh thing that acted too early in hunger. The others descend in a group, water and mud splashing around as Geralt tries to keep them at bay and slowly cuts off one head after another.

He tunes out Roach’s nervous neighs and Jaskier’s frantic voice, focusing his senses on not dropping the sword as it gets slick with blood and water from the marsh alike. A claw barely misses his eye and he stumbles long enough to be pushed back, into the soggy ground, his boots sinking in.

He swings around and uses Aard at the same time to push the last dozen far enough to give him time to try and get himself back to stable ground.

“Geralt!” Jaskier’s voice cuts through the air with the sound of water splashing under rapid footsteps and Geralt whips around.

A lone drowner kept behind him and stands tall, claws descending in an arch and Geralt raises his free hand because the weight of the sword means he won’t be fast enough with the other-

The hit never comes. A dry crack rings in the air and the drowner falls to the muddy water with a squelch, half of its skull caved in, Jaskier right behind him and clutching at a lute dirty with slime and scraps of dead skin.

Geralt just stares at him, at the wide blue eyes and open mouth and ashen skin, a dozen question on this tongue that somehow all boil down to a simple _why_ – why would Jaskier endanger himself, why would he do it for a witcher, did he forget he’s much harder he is to kill, why would he risk his new lute, why-

Then a splash behind makes him turn, swinging silver sword on an instinct. He cuts through two drowners in half before falling to his knees, feet still stuck in the mud. He pushes himself up with a grunt and uses Aard again, hoping Jaskier’s too shocked to notice and that his scent will distract the last few drowners.

Luckily, it does, and he kills them off as quickly as possible, hissing when the last one’s claw cuts his arm open to the elbow. He sways before keeping uprights, breathing fast and still clutching the sword. Drowners keep to packs and rarely split up, but sometimes worse monsters use them as an easy distraction to weaken their prey.

But he can’t hear anything and all he smells is the sudden emptiness that spreads from behind. He breathes in and out, squares his shoulders and starts turning around to confront Jaskier – to scream at him about learning to listen, to order him to leave if he’s going to interfere for no reason, but-

“Fuck, I think my lute is magic.” Jaskier laughs, breathless and with just a hint of panic, and Geralt has to agree – the lute has barely a scratch after denting a skull of a _drowner_, it should be in pieces, how is it intact?

Then Jaskier seems to choke on his own breath as he gasps: “_Fuck_, I think my lute is _magic!” _he’s half reverent and half terrified, smoky notes dragging after the sour smell that makes for a nauseating match with the drowner blood and the marsh.

Geralt feels glad he kept the sign use vaguely secret and tries not to feel disappointed at Jaskier’s fear of magic. Didn’t he do enough to convince him it’s not inherently bad, was his little theft on the road just a ploy to endear Geralt to him? Didn’t he _trust_ him?

And it hits him that _of course not_, who would trust a witcher, who would trust Butcher of Blaviken?

So he wipes down his sword and sheaths it on his back before finally dragging his feet out of the soggy marsh with a curse at the state of his clothes.

It seems to break whatever trance Jaskier fell under, because he throws the lute across his back and comes closer. His hands hover in front of the witcher before he snaps them away. It makes Geralt’s stomach churn and he hates how easily he took the casual touch for granted and let himself get used to it.

“Guess I’m glad to have listened to Mina, about the better leather.” Jaskier says after a beat of silence, trying uselessly to wipe his shoes on the damp grass. “She said the marsh should lead to a river after a left turn?” he adds, looking over Geralt.

His eyes keep longer at his arm, palms twitching as if he wanted to reach to him and Geralt only remembers about the cut when he sees it. It’s long, but pretty shallow and will heal on its own after a quick clean.

“Let’s go then.” He says and passes Jaskier to get Roach. He soothes a hand over her neck, grunting as her head-butt punches the air out of him. “I know, you’ll get a good scrub too.” He promises, pointedly ignoring Jaskier’s look and reaching to saddle bag for a potion to fight possible infection.

The cut is small, but you can never be too careful with drowners and dirty water.

The road after the marsh does lead to a river-bend, water clear and _cold as ice_ if Jaskier’s bemoaning is to be believed. Geralt’s too desensitised to cold and heat, mutations ensuring he’d thrive in any kind of weather, so he just sits by and more or less washes himself off from the most of the blood and grime. He cleans the cut too and tries to ignore the way he can feel Jaskier’s stare glued to himself.

He’s still unsure why bard stayed and isn’t fleeing to the nearest town, after what he saw – after being confronted with the reality of witcher’s life that he tries so hard to force himself into.

He tries not to think about maybe, just maybe, Jaskier doing none of such things because he truly plans on sticking around.

“Just water and that’s it?” he asks finally, with worry clear on his face. “Not to mention clothed bath isn’t the best solution either.”

Geralt tenses before he realised it and grinds his teeth at the mere thought of taking off the armour, let alone his clothes.

“If you’re that starved for _a show_ then go back and find yourself a brothel.” he snaps without thinking and regrets it as soon as the words leave his mouth.

But all Jaskier does is splash some water on him with a snort before he goes back to washing his shoes. He sits by Geralt when he makes a fire, he sleeps with the lute clutches to his chest as Geralt takes care of his sword, and in the morning they start walking again. He doesn’t leave when they reach a new town – instead he plays his songs, deals with grumbling patrons and then brings Geralt all the rumours that look like they might deal with supernatural, as they rest in room the bard has rented for a night.

It’s – unbelievable, so Geralt tries not to get used to it (not wanting to get a harsh wakeup call like with Jaskier’s touch, even momentary), but can’t help but wonder what exactly is Jaskier’s endgame.

It takes five more contracts, bard patiently staying in the inns to play and still there when Geralt is back, before witcher realizes that the answer seems to be simply _staying_.

He’s back from the last contract, a little disappointed since it turned out to be just a wild mountain cat driven so close to town with hunger. He plans of giving back the money, but the meat will be enough for a few meals and the pelt is nice enough to fetch a fair price too, since the village has its own market.

He’s back much earlier than he planned, is the thing, so he hears Jaskier’s voice and his song trough the open window from a good distance, but only listens in as the smell of peppermint hits him as if the inn was drowning in it.

It’s a cheery tune, with short lines and rapid tempo, but what stops Geralt in the middle of the road are the words. About _lord Edfart_ who _chased all witcher from his land_ and now is _getting his just reward_ – _drowners in the marshes, werewolves in the coops, fields drying out and barren as archespores take roots_.

It’s no hard to figure out where it came from and it hits Geralt like an avalanche.

First is the old, heavy guilt, because Geralt hasn’t set foot in Kaer Morhen in years because of incidents like that one, feeling his guilt over Blaviken triple at the thought of making already miserable lives even harder for other witchers as well, because few humans care enough to lump them all together.

The second is an overwhelming realization of how much Jaskier is putting on the line here – just for him.

It’s _a little thing_, sure, but it means so much. It’s Jaskier’s reputation, his own safety he’s endangering on behalf of a witcher. Mocking a lord in petty revenge of the unfair treatment that honestly, was so light Geralt was starting to forget the whole thing (all except the way he _hates_ Jaskier’s smell disappearing into the pure void of shock). It might be for how close Jaskier came to being hurt as well, but the song is all about mocking the conceited lord and always putting _his prejudice against witchers_ at the forefront.

The commitment and compassion that the acts suggest make Geralt’s heart want to jump out of his chest straight to Jaskier’s hand. He has to lean on a wall by the inn’s entrance, eavesdropping on the rest of the song and the boisterous laughs, breathing slowly to regain control.

_Jaskier’s not leaving_. It’s a sudden realization that takes root in Gerakt’s bones, but it’s not- unpleasant. He’s not sure what it _is_ though.

He decided to wait and see. As long as needed (as long as he’s allowed).

* * *

Geralt has _opinions_ about Marks and destiny and the bonds, but he keeps them to himself. They’re controversial, because how dare he refute the connection between souls that brings them into a fated union, the only constant in the world.

There are many reasons he could name. A man cursed into a werewolf, a block fur reflecting his mark as Geralt killed him, body of his husband torn _from inside out_ under the beast and beyond saving, an intricate pattern on his stomach shredded into pieces. A young woman he saves from a drowner, a pile of wood she cut as heavy as her pregnant stomach, a young child and an old man going blind waiting for her at home, a pattern not unlike broken class cut in half on her back when he stitches it up. A boy with ankles shredded bloody with chains put on him by his mother, a butterfly and a moth plant flower on their skins, another town to avoid. Two sisters at a joint royal wedding, twins, both with Marks upon their stomachs, a faint echo of stitch-scars around them, belly-buttons off centre and skin-tones not matching anymore in front of witcher’s eyes, but fine for anyone else.

Stories upon stories upon stories about people suffering from their fated matches.

He can’t blame Jaskier for falling for them, as young and artistic as he is, but it only makes him pity the fool more that he already does – for staying with him, for wasting his youth, for seemingly throwing his heart at any pretty face around.

But the alderman didn’t mention kikimora Queen had a whole nest and he run out of potions half-way trough and it’s a miracle he’s got not a scratch on him, but his armour is that much closer to needing immediate repair and one side of his silver sword has too many chips to still be of any use.

So when Jaskier sings about being Marked and possessions with such a lovely smile and forlorn eyes, then comes to him with sickly-sweet smell of pride surrounding him, is already more irritated than he would like. He does let the bard steal his ale, because he’s a witcher and he can smell exhaustion hanging off of him, like mildew and dust of forgotten fabrics, dragging after him. He can smell hunger too, dry and cold at the back of his throat.

They are serving supper, but he left the inn busy with people coming for dinner, so Jaskier must’ve sung since then without a stop or a meal. It’s hours and he can hear the strain in his voice as soon as bard speaks.

But when Jaskier starts _talking about the song_, he snaps.

“He was right.” Geralt rubs at his forearm, _a mark_ of memories long buried, but never fading. “It’s shit.”

“Oh, really, Geralt? He was right to fail me, that’s what you think? _Puh_-lease, this _shit_ just bought us another night here **and** a bath for you.” Jaskier crosses his arms and Geralt tries to ignore the anxiety coming off of him.

He noticed very early that he might act like the gift to mankind, but doesn’t truly think himself half as good as he poses. He’s not sure why, he saw firsthand how exceptional he is, even if it baffles him most of the time and brings trouble during the rest.

“Marks are bullshit.” Geralt takes back his ale and rubs at his arm absentmindedly.

He’s long outgrown wishes about finding his match. All it brings is misery even for simple humans, how much more heartache would being tied to a witcher bring? Either dragged across the world or always awaiting a quick visits, what kind of _perfect bond_ would it be?

It’s better that witchers have no Marks.

“What, witchers don’t have Marks as well as hearts?” Jaskier jokes and it’s weak, but Geralt rubs at his arm _again_ with a grimace.

He loathes this rumour and even more so being reminded of it. The cheap excuse for humans to treat witchers as they please, wasn’t Jaskier supposed to _not be dim enough to fall for them?_

The song rattled him more than he’d like to admit. It made him think about soulbonds at all, something he prefers to ignore as much as he can. The implied ownership dressed up as belonging, as if chains won’t weigh you down if they’re padded well enough. The destiny deciding for you, as if people are just marionettes to be pulled around and tied in place.

Geralt lost enough choices in his life. He’s glad to avoid sacrificing even more just because of a bit of colour on the skin. There isn’t even a sure method – some look for similar matches, some rely on metaphors, some stretch the meaning as an excuse and some burns them off and replace with a _proper match_ to not stir up a scandal.

He’s better off without it.

And yet, he thought about it now, because the song made him wonder about Jaskier and his Mark – if he even has one. It’s rare, as much as multiple Marks, but it happens. It would certainly explain why he’s so open with his affection towards anyone close enough (even Geralt).

“Come on, you’re still human under all those glorious muscles and pretty hair, aren’t you?” Jaskier asks again, the melancholy coming off him in damp, salty waves. “Everyone has a Mark.” He ads and that does it.

Geralt stands abruptly, guilt pulling in his stomach as he sees the table stab at bard’s chest, silencing him. He doesn’t like the fact he stole his breath again (destiny doesn’t care for the world, but patters are so rarely a mere coincidence – he hopes this is one of them as he climbs the stairs).

When he walks into the room the bath is already drawn and it doesn’t make sense. He paid for the room, but asked to be ready to prepare bath when he comes back and gets the pay.

“Let me guess, baths in scalding water are another of your witchery things?” Jaskier shrugs off his doublet after closing the door and as he puts his lute far away from the bathtub, it jingles with coins and it clicks for Geralt, making his heart lurch.

The shitty song that paid _for another night here **and** a bath._ Jaskier must’ve paid before he even sat down, the idiot. Geralt watches him eye the tub and the steam coming off it and decides he’ll repay him, in any way that comes up.

He walks up to the tub and freezes at a realisation that they got _one room_, feeling like an utter fool. Jaskier locked the door and is only in his chemise, so he clearly intends to stay.

The thought of taking off his armour, let alone clothes makes Geralt’s skin crawl. He became unfamiliar with letting his armour down since Blaviken – he can’t afford it, not when people are so ready to attack or run him off, not when pay barely keeps him alive and with functioning weapons, not when he so often feels a moment away from breaking and spilling over, the leather straps the only things keeping him together.

He can’t remember when he last took it off for more than a quick cleanup by a river.

It’s not even that’s it Jaskier, it barely makes a difference to his scrambled mind, it just became the norm that he cannot relax even when alone, because there are no more people who’ll tolerate him and-

“Come on, off with all – that,” Jaskier’s suddenly is in front o him, sleeves pulled up and a finger tapping at Geralt’s armour.

Geralt breathes in and barely suppresses a grimace, throwing him a suspicious glance. He can smell his frustrations and sexual desires, sweetness and spice in the air thick with mist still coming off the hot water.

He suddenly fears this whole thing – the room, the bath, the closeness, all can be a ploy to take advantage. Bard clearly saw how secluded Geralt is and how people treat him, it’d be normal if he decided to play nice to get himself a witcher to lay with and gossip about later, maybe sing about. He wouldn’t be the first to try and_ tame the beast_ this way -

But Jaskier only crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow at him.

“You’re getting into this bath and I’m even gonna be nice and wash your hair before something _breeds_ in all the dirt.” He says, reaching to take off a piece of kikimora’s skin and throws it, still dripping with their oil, into the small fireplace where if gives a hiss and makes smoke twist in the air.

Geralt rolls his eyes at the blush only _now_ spreading on Jaskier’s face, but relaxes a little. Bard’s too – open, to honest to resort to underhanded things like that. If he wanted anything he'd definitely hear it straight from his lips, not takes under a guise of kindness.

He doesn’t deserve any of Geralt paranoia, after staying with him so long, doing so much.

“You’re taking this bath or so help me gods, you will not touch the bed.” Jaskier threatens ad Geralt bites down a bitter laugh. He can’t remember the last time he slept, because all he dreams of is Renfri, so he meditates instead to at least deal with exhaustion.

He does let Jaskier slowly work on the clasps of his armour,

“Also, I can literally see a _hole in here_, what the fuck, Geralt, if you’re hurt I swear to Melitele, I’m gonna fetch a healer and you will be paying for it!”

Geralt does huff a laugh at the incredulous tone of his voice, but doesn’t explain how much it costs to keep a silver sword in good shape, so fixing his armour never gets to be a priority until starts actually breaking apart. He’s almost ready to risk it now, with the way Jaskier’s songs slowly make it easier to get paid on the regular.

That’s why he agrees to stay the night, to test the waters and see if people are truly able to at least tolerate him. If not, there is no use trying for more.

He smiles briefly when Jaskier almost falter under the weights of his armour, reaching a hand before he stops himself, looking bard over. His hands are dirty with old blood and gore and his rubbing at his fingers, probably sore from dealing with the clasps. Geralt truly needs to repay him, preferably tonight.

Then Jaskier looks at him and just stares, eyes wide and Geralt tries to brace himself for the usual. Bard finally sees him just in a thin shirt and pants, sees him for the monster that he is, too many muscles put on a too small frame, the blood and dirt and gore and-

Then he takes a breath and smiles again, because – no. It’s none of those, Jaskier is just as horny as ever.

The predictability of the answer is almost- comforting, in a way. It’s simple and Geralt can easily ignore anything that happens and just take advantage of Jaskier’s care, no matter how undeserved it is.

Until he can’t.

Until he’s naked in the tub and Jaskier is sitting by, those blue eyes wide in horror that sours the air, unblinking as he zeroes in on the scar on Geralt arm. The only trace of his Mark.

“You’re staring.” Geralt bark out, harsher than he intended and grimaces at the way Jaskier’s blushing amidst apologies, his eyes shying away.

He doesn’t like it. He hates Jaskier staring at hit scar, but he doesn’t like him looking away and it’s awfully confusing, but-

He thinks of the elves and the lute, of the songs, of the flowers blooming into a bruise and the caved-in skull, of hours spent singing hungry and the room and bah paid for. The casual touches and the voice to fill the encompassing void that became his life after Blaviken.

“It’s a test.” He forces out, letting a bitter laugh at Jaskier’s horrified expression.

Somehow, he doesn’t like him looking at him like that either. He’s not sure what he’d like, what he’d want, but he knows what he owes, so he stops any emotions and explains vacantly:

“Can’t have them coming back for the children they abandoned. Without Mark, there is no way to recognize them.”

Jaskier shudders and Geralt wonders if maybe this is the breaking point, the abhorrent defiance of the soulbonds. He thinks back to the song, wonders again if Jaskier has no Mark. He never smelt it on him and Marked skin does smell different, but there are so many oils on him... and he never saw him fully naked, did he?

It would fit, if he doesn’t have one – if he thinks himself made wrong or destined to loneliness, sleeping around and singing praises to the fated unions as a way to cope. That would make sense, but Jaskier rarely does. So who really knows?

“Well. At least I know you won’t abandon me for a pretty _whoever_.” Bard’s voice is forced, but Geralt doesn’t comment on it, only cranes his head back as he watches him sit behind him on a stool. “As I said, I’m gonna be nice and wash your hair before something hatches in there, so sit up.”

Geralt looks at him for a moment, knowing fully well how many ways there are to turn this into harm. Poison or a sleeping drug, people waiting outside, a hidden blade, a push under the water-

But Jaskier doesn’t deserve his paranoia, so Geralt forces those thoughts out of his head and sits up. He lets Jaskier wash his hair, never quite able to relax, but not as stiff as it goes on.

This is different than the casual touches he was used to by now. It’s more intimate, even as Jaskier keeps on his gloves. They’re different ones, covering just his palms and wrists, which is probably a clue to him having a Mark, just one he prefers to keep private... or playing it up because he has none and prefers to keep it secret.

It’s truly _none of Geralt’s business_, so he pushes those thoughts away too.

Jaskier hums as he washes his hair, tone and melody meandering before they settle on something cohesive and Geralt can’t help the small, indulgent smile. He shifts in the tub, again, trying to find a position that won’t aggravate something. The muscles sore from a long horse ride, bruises from the kikimora, old scars that bring up echoes of pain...

“Wash yourself and then I will be especially nice and help you relax.” Jaskier’s tone is light, so light Geralt levels him with a stare.

Jaskier blushes, again, and Geralt thinks he might like _this._ The colour fits his eyes, somehow.

“I mean a massage, you brute, get your mind out of the gutter. Honestly, if I was making a move on you I would be _far_ more direct because you can be as thick as a boulder. Which you’re doing a grand job of impersonating right now.” Jaskier mumbles and Geralt lets out a chuckle.

Just like he thought. To open for any schemes and loud enough to demand whatever he wants.

The massage only gives him more proof, as Jaskier clearly desires him, his lust heavy in the air in stark contrast to the soft scent of chamomile oils, but he never asks for anything. Doesn’t even _try_, his hands never slipping below Geralt’s waist. It doesn’t mean witcher can relax, but he does end up feeling pleasantly _less tense_ and in much less pain, so he counts it as a win.

It's nice, to have something like this without expectation of more or money being exchanged.

He doesn't understand it, of course, but he doesn’t understand Jaskier as a whole and _it's nice_, so he won’t ask and risk losing it for no reason.

He listens as Jaskier tells him to sleep, but still lets his eyes wonder after him. His arm raises in Igni to warm the water as Jaskier prepares for a wash, guilt over monopolizing the bath flashing briefly through his mind.

He doesn’t sleep, but the meditation is easier to fall into and gives him more peace than usual. It’s also deeper than usual, because he misses the noises in the room completely and guilt comes back stronger in the morning, as he finds his armour fixed and his clothes washed. Jaskier's fingers are red and he keeps them away from the lute and Geralt wanted some silence, but not like that.

He prays to gods the coincidences never become more.

* * *

Geralt’s fighting a bunch of graviers that breed after a mudslide, the rain still going on and making it all that much harder. He’s got a few cuts and bruises at his arms already and his ankle is probably broken, but he’s got only two monsters left to kill.

In an irritating déjà vu, he hears a scream and a growl behind himself and barely turns around in time to throw a sword at the last gravier that snuck behind him and was looking between him and Jaskier.

It was much closer to the bard than him, close enough that one leap would’ve let it bite off his head and it makes Geralt’s blood run cold despite potions in his system.

It’s- disconcerting and irritating, so he stalks to get his weapon back and then to Jaskier.

“I told you to stay behind!” he growls out, grabbing his clothes to shake him.

Blue eyes widen and he’s speechless for a second and it’s only then that Geralt remembers he was in the middle of a fight. His eyes are still black, picking up every minute muscle twitch at bard’s face.

Geralt is- _afraid_, he realizes with startling clarity as he lets him go, watching as Jaskier falls to the ground.

He got used to the fact that bard’s here to stay and the thought of him running off because he finally scared him enough is- painful. He doesn’t want him gone, not anymore, no matter how much he gets under his skin.

He wants him. His silly songs and casual touches and gentle care and everything he spent decades telling himself is not something for a witcher to want, and yet, here he is, _wanting_ so badly his blood seems to freeze.

Fuck. He knew it was a mistake to let him follow him-

“How about a_ thank you,_ Geralt!” Jaskier snorts and then throws something at Geralt. He catches it and barely makes out colourful gems and bright metal in the downpour.

He can still feel the silver hum, responding to his magic. It’s pretty pure and smooth under his skin and-

“Did you get us thrown out for _stealing?_” he asks, disbelief thick on his voice, because this is new. Laying in a wrong bed, sure, but theft wasn’t something Jaskier indulged in.

Not since-

Geralt looks at Jaskier as he clumsily gets up, the road more of a muddy river than anything else by this point. He has his lute and a small bag Geralt left him with, so he clearly plans on leaving, but something’s not right here.

“Don’t look at me like that!” Jaskier kicks some mud at him and curses as it only splashes on his own booths. That leather did end up being a good choice, still holding out after weeks of travel. “It would’ve killed you and I’m not gonna stand for it!” he turns away, but not before Geralt catches a faint blush on his face.

He looks at the last gravier and Geralt follows his gaze and when he sees a shallow cut at its neck, things click into place.

Silver, because Jaskier would’ve to be blind not to see Geralt’s sword being practically blunt at one edge since he took to sharpening it right next to him. Silver, probably some jewellery stolen from his last conquest, getting him thrown out because there is no way they can afford the metal on their own.

Jaskier stole to help him and it- it should make him feel weak, make his pride roar with indignity, but instead Geralt’s chest swell with warmth despite the rain and he can’t find his voice for a moment.

When he does, he settles for asking about Roach and a vague threat about what he’ll do to Jaskier if he dared left her behind. It gets him an irritated huff, but Jaskier looks at him again, so it’s fine.

They set out to a nearby town where Geralt knows a blacksmith who owes him a favour. He leaves his sword to be repaired, silver to be used as filling and the pretty stones to pay for most of the work, but he picks out a bright blue one that’s somehow still duller than Jaskier’s eyes, to be set in a simple ring.

He slips it into Jaskier’s clothes and doesn’t smile into his ale as he sees it on his finger the next time bard perform in the tavern. He does _subtly_ complement the choice and how it’ll alert Jaskier to any non-humans should they touch it.

* * *

Sometimes, Jaskier can care too much for comfort. Like when he leans over Geralt’s arm in the inn and points to his or that human, whispering about _an evening of fun_ and asking if he’s interested. He always refuses and tries to ignore the keen eyes watching him whenever he chooses to visit a brothel instead.

It’s safer. He tells exactly what he wants and has the incentive of money to make people at least pretend to tolerate him. It’s better than risking spooking someone and getting thrown out of the room or worse.

Jaskier should know, with how often they’re run out these days because of his dalliances.

Speaking of which...

Geralt expected bard to do something, with the way he watches too closely and clearly thinks too much, but him barging onto a room in a whorehouse wasn’t too high on the list. It was on it, because Jaskier clearly has no shame or decency, but so low he actually didn’t prepare for what might happen.

“Ah!” Jaskier looks so startled in the doorway that Geralt huffs a laugh, letting the women slide off his lap and cover up with his discarder shirt. “My apologies, my lady, so sorry to intrude as such-” He’s babbling, closing the doors and not very subtly lays his lute on the table, a coin purse jangling as he puts it right next to it.

Geralt can smell the anxiety on him, but he hesitates for a second because he did pay and it’d be a waste and bard should be able to survive a night if he waits downstairs-

It’s enough to have Jaskier strut to the whore and start charming her into relaxing with sweet words and clunky compliments. Geralt is honestly amused enough to just keep watching and-

There is no good way to interfere after that, not really. It’s a little weird, Jaskier surprisingly complacent with women’s mouth on him as she moves on Geralt lap, back to his chest. She seems calmer now than just with Geralt and it doesn’t nag at him, of course it doesn’t, he’s used to it.

He’s not used to hearing Jaskier gasp and whispers absolute filth so close to him, but he has practice at stomping down unwanted emotions and just takes advantage of nice situation. It doesn’t mean anything for the bard, so it won’t for him either, no matter the way those blue eyes bore into his when the whore brought him to a finish.

She walks out soon, taking a tip from Jaskier’s purse on the table, but tells them not to hurry. Geralt stands up and wipes himself with a rag before dressing up. He waits for the bard to follow suit, but he just sits on the bed, his breathing quick and his clothes barely ruffled outside of pants unlaced open.

Geralt rolls his eyes and throws a clean towel at his face as he sits by the window.

“Thanks.” Jaskier cleans up, but then just sits by the table and doesn’t say a word and that’s... worrying.

He’s never quiet. Geralt knows it’s not just his character, can smell the nerves on and off and hear the anxious strain to his voice often enough, but this – this is different. His clothes reek of adrenaline and sweat, but Jaskier himself smells of nothing. Pure nothing of shock and Geralt’s supposed to be better than to miss it just because he has a whore on his lap.

So he drags his chair in front of Jaskier and looks at him.

“What’s wrong?” he asks and bard shakes, then it’s like a dam bursting open.

“Fuck lord Edward.” He snarls, arms coming up to hug himself tightly. “Bloody coward, couldn’t even go himself, no, he sends cheap mercenaries! One dumber than the other, seriously, lost them easier than a mouse in a field...”

Geralt listens to him, lets him let off steam and plans to not let him out of his sight for a while. He expected some retaliation, but to send mercenaries... lord’s reputation had to take a serious hit. It’s believable, with the way Jaskier’s song spread around – tune catchy and humour just cheap and dirty enough.

He should’ve prepared for it, why did he leave the bard alone?

Why is he fucking up so much when it comes to him?

Geralt breathes in and out slowly, waiting until Jaskier talks himself out and falls silent again.

“I asked what’s _wrong,_ not what happened.” He drawls and almost smiles at the way Jaskier honest to gods pouts. It’s should not make him relax as much as it does.

“I’m used to being chased off, you know?” he says, picking at a torn sleeve Geralt didn’t notice before, eyes downcast. “_Beatings_, I’m used to, gods know Oxenfurt loved their canes, but- they didn’t even _speak_.” He shudders, curling around himself. “Jumped at my throat with knives but without a word a-and if it wasn’t- if it didn’t catch a-at the strap I-I would’ve-!” he takes a shaky breath, glancing at his lute case on the table.

There is a nick at the strap, high up, right when it would rest on Jaskier’s neck. Another thing Geralt missed, another thing to feel guilty about.

He’s not sure what to say and before he finds the words, Jaskier looks at him, earnest.

“You got potions, right?” He whispers. “All your witchery potions and magic stuff. Can-?” he bites his lip and Geralt feels a cold shiver run up his spine at the misery heavy in the air, a hint of fear barely there. “Can they make me forget?”

Geralt grinds his teeth, looking away.

Jaskier’s not the first one curious about witcher’s magic. He’s not even the first one to ask about erasing memories and Geralt tries not to linger on how familiar this situation is, down to talking about it _in a whorehouse._

“You’re human. Potions will kill you.” His voice still comes out harsher than he intended and the way Jaskier flinches makes him cringe. “There _is_ magic I can use... to influence your mind.” He adds slowly, carefully. “If you would trust me with it.” He adds.

_If you would trust me at all, if you would trust me with magic, if you’re not afraid of them any longer._

Jaskier’s breath is still shaky when he nods.

Geralt reaches to brush hair out of his face and lets his fingers slide from Jaskier’s forehead before he moves them into Axii.

“You will forget about assassins attacking you and you’ll think you came here because you were chased off for singing about witchers.” He supplies carefully, easily taking blame for himself if it’ll let Jaskier sleep easier and make him stay.

After a moment, he adds: “You will forget all that happened in this room until I asked “what’s wrong”. You’ll remember finding me in an empty room after I already finished my- _fun_.” He says and ignores the painful jab at his chest.

It’s for the better. He doesn’t need Jaskier remembering anything _unnecessary_. Anything to keep him with him.

They leave after he makes sure Axii took and that he didn’t leave anything for Jaskier to think about and make magic fail. It’s not supposed to, but Jaskier defies all expectations, so it’s better to be safe than sorry.

In the next town he sends Jaskier to find them a room and trails a little behind. The assassins find him easily and he corners then even easier, beheading one and sending another back to lord Edward and his guild with a message to not touch Jaskier if they value their lives.

* * *

Jaskier trailing along for the hunts becomes a thing. Geralt gives it a month to make sure nobody is following them anymore, but despite Axii bard is jittery on tight streets and nightmares make him lose sleep for a week before they start fading away.

So Geralt doesn’t tell him to stay back anymore and just makes sure to leave him at a safe distance with Roach.

It has nothing to do with the pleasant heat that fills his chest whenever Jaskier sees him fight, sees him covered in gore and under potions, sees all the nasty parts of witcher’s work and never baulks away, instead coming close to fuss over and push him into baths and take care of his wounds. He lets him do it now, after that evening full of chamomile he even allows the massages when they can afford the time for them.

The routine makes him complacent and sometimes, he forget how little Jaskier actually knows of his life.

He just dealt with selkimore, letting it swallow him to split the soft stomach open instead of dealing with hard scales and spines. The overflowing river is still shallow enough he can easily swim out, but leaves him still covered in gore and monster flesh.

He’s wiping his face with a sleeve when Jaskier jumps at him, pushing them both under. Geralt wants to throw him off and snap at him, grinding his teeth as the push makes pain flare up his arm where a sharp fang pierced the armour.

But Jaskier’s shaking in his arm like a leaf and he’s clinging to him for dear life if not harder, and when he talks it’s to gasp out a broken: “You’re a-alive!”

So Geralt just sits them on the shallows and wraps an arm around him, since Jaskier just saw him _get swallowed whole_ with no idea that was the plan since the start.

“I’m fine.” He grunts when the shaking turn into cold shivers. “You kill selkmiore from the inside.”

Jaskier snorts with a weak slap at Geralt’s arm and he hisses in pain, pulling away.

“Fine, my ass.” Jaskier rolls his eyes with a shaky smile and sits on the river bank. “Come here, might as well get you clean when we can, maybe stave off the infection.” He waves at him.

Geralt sighs, but sits in front of him and closes his eyes when Jaskier’s fingers start working on the leather strap that barely keeps his hair in place.

It’s much more relaxing to let Jaskier deal with a clean up and stitching the wound than doing it himself. It’s a luxury and he shouldn’t be getting used to it, but it’s been quite a while since Jaskier joined him and even assassins never made him try and run.

So he lets his guard down just enough to let Jaskier, but still keeps him at arms lengths.

It’s safer this way, for both of them.

* * *

He forgets about lord Edward for a while, until Jaskier comes back from a shop positively radiating glee and with a satchel full of gold.

“A very nice man gave them to me under a condition I shan’t sing a certain little song till my dying breath.” He explains, lips curling in a smile as a hand does around Geralt’s bicep to pull him in the direction of the tavern.

Geralt has a bad feeling about it, but since Jaskier’s unharmed he doesn’t say a word.

He sits by with a dinner and lets bard prance around. Predictably, he does his best to sing all his funniest, most derogatory tunes and almost shakes from excitement when someone finally asks about _that song._

“Alas!” he swipes his lute in the air, his voice dreadfully pained. “Good lord Edfa- sorry, _Edward_, “he corrects himself without an ounce of shame and Geralt rubes at his temple. “Just paid me such a generous pension to keep this particular song out of my roster I cannot in good conscience go against his wishes.”

People boo and joke around. Geralt gives it a week before half the Continent knows that the songs must be real enough to hit a sore spot. Especially when Jaskier points out that no agreement was made to stop him from reciting the words, which he does in voice as dry as sand, before he plays the tune to let people make their own entertainment.

Geralt still remember knife coming too close to Jaskier’s face, a long time ago, and decides it’s not really his place to tell a bard how to do his job, is it?

Especially when part of the money goes into paying for a set of silver-studded armour that Jaskier brings from his trip for new gloves, acting as if it was nothing.

Of course Jaskier makes him start regretting it the very same evening, when four bottles of insanely expensive wine leave him barely coherent by the table and force Geralt to carry him to their room. He’d throw him over his arm if he wasn’t sure it’d end up in vomit all over the floor, so bridal carry it is.

“So pretty!” Jaskier giggles into his ear, his breath hot and sweet and almost sticking to Geralt’s skin. His fingers tug clumsily at his hair. “They swim- no, wait, they _flow_ like silver. Melted silver!” he hums. “Wait, do you melt silver? Geralt, does you sword melt in the sun?” he gasps, jerking in his arms and almost sends them down the stairs. “Geralt, is this how they give you the kitty eyes? They melt gold to pour it in?” he whispers, reverent, like he figured out some secret.

“Just pass out already.” Geralt huffs and holds him in one arm, picking at his pockets for the room key. Jaskier poking at his arm doesn’t help, so he throws him up in the air just a little bit, not smiling at all at the squeaked out curse. “Stay still or I‘ll drop you.”

“No you won’t~!” Jaskier sing-songs, voice bright and lilting and almost cocky enough to make Geralt make true of his threat. “You would never... fuck, do I weight anything to you?” he’s gasping again, fingers stroking at Geralt’s bicep at he shifts his hold, muscles moving right under his touch.

“No.” Geralt finally feels the key and ignores the way Jaskier squirms and grumbles as he digs it out of his side pocket.

He’s trying not drop him as he opens the door when someone stumbled into the behind them.

“You!” a woman is swaying as she points her finger at Jaskier. She’s dragging a man by his shirt and he’s even more drunk, mumbling incoherently. He does leer at the bard and Geralt frowns, holding him closer on instinct.

The woman pushes her man into a room with a none too gentle kick and comes closer to them, still pointing an unsteady finger at Jaskier, who’s very maturely sticking his tongue at her. “This bitch tried to jump my husband!”

“Did not!” Jaskier snorts, looking down his nose at her. “I have s_tandards_.” he adds, snidely.

Geralt sighs, leaning against the wall and breathing slowly.

“He didn’t do anything, ma’am.” He says, digging a finger into Jaskier’s back when he opens his mouth. He gets a pout, but thankfully bard stays silent.

The woman looks to the side at Geralt, then up and up to finally meet his eyes and falters a little.

“H-how would you know?!”

Geralt sighs, again, and tunes out the smell of alcohol around Jaskier and is little surprise at the bright, fiery smell hidden underneath.

Guess the bard _does_ have standards. Who would’ve guessed?

“He wouldn’t be false to me.” Geralt says it in a tone not leaving much room for disputes. “Now please, go to your room and we’ll do the same.”

He’s not sure why the lady stumbles back and looks between them with gaping mouth before running to her room or why Jaskier chortles with laughter. He goes into their room and drops him onto the bed and levels him with a questioning glare.

It takes a moment for him to get the laugh under control, gasping out between giggles and short breaths: “The _be fa-asle thing~”_ his voice drags and Geralt crosses his arms. “Means a-a sex thing- you d-dumb- dummy!”

Geralt freezes for a moment.

“Fuck.” He sighs again and leaves Jaskier to his hysteria.

He goes into the room and uses Axii before the couple can even protest, making them forget whatever they saw or heard and _maybe_ adds an order to stop drinking because he simply feels petty.

Why does language have to get fucked up so quickly? It’s only been a _century_ for him, no wonder Vesemir is such a bitter fuck if he’s lived far longer and had to deal with it.

Jaskier’s still on the bed, only in one of Geralt’s shirts, the new and expensive clothes in a heap on the floor. Geralt hangs them on the chair if only to avoid the whining tomorrow and tries to ignore drunken stares as he undresses for bed.

It works for a while, until he sits on the bed and pushes Jaskier to the side and bard starts to ask what he went out to do.

“Make them forget my language fuck up!” he snaps finally and tenses, because even drunk Jaskier must get the implications.

Jaskier blinks a few times, then just slumps against witcher’s side with a sigh.

“Good. Dumbs don’t deserve to- make rumors.” He smiles against his skin, a little predatory and Geralt sighs, expecting a needling about the magic and Signs first thing tomorrow, but doesn’t push him away.

It means Geralt won’t be able to keep him busy with starting the fire from scratch anymore, but he can live with that. It startles him to realize that without Jaskier – _he can’t_.

“Trust you with it, won’t do _me,_ so it’s fine.” Jaskier adds and this-

This is too much. Especially since Geralt already betrayed this trust, didn’t he, for his own comfort and ease of life, doesn’t matter if Jaskier asked for it or not. Fuck, _even now_ he wondered briefly if maybe he should use it on him, to make him keep it in his pants, but – no, be can’t.

Not like that.

Maybe Jaskier not sleeping around would be better in the long run, since they won’t be run out of towns so often. The song changed people’s attitudes enough that they don’t have to fear being cast out as a rule, but then Jaskier causes almost as much trouble, as if he was trying to compensate for it.

Still, it's – easier? Because, now, it's Jaskier alone being targeted and they flee from misguided hurt honour and not murderous rage, few at most chasing them and others laughing at the whole situation, not cursed out and followed with stones.

So he can’t mess with Jaskier’s mind like that. A stray thought does take root in his mind – about his blunder before, the rumours that would’ve spread.

What would it be like, if they were true? If he ended their troubles by keeping Jaskier to himself, keeping him busy this way? They’d save up on brothels and lost room payments, that’s for sure...

He can imagine it. Jaskier’s so open with affection and so in love with everything around him that the sex seems like the only thing missing and with that evening in the brothel he already-

Geralt forces those thoughts away before they get to his head. He won’t lose – _whatever_ he has with Jaskier now, just because he let himself wish for too much.

He knows what happens when he wants too much, or anything for himself. He gets to keep it for a moment before all goes to shit and he’s not ready to repeat this with Jaskier.

Not now and if he can help it, not ever.

* * *

Few poisons work on witchers, and fewer still manage to ever get the chance.

They pass a town that sends them to ‘check on’ an abandoned little village near the mountain stream, and Jaskier has whined for a week about his sore feet and then a sore ass when Geralt let him ride with him on the Roach, so they decided to stop for a night. Geralt wouldn’t admit a week of travelling through narrow rocky road was getting to him too, nor that getting used to constant work being thrown at him was taking its toll as well.

He was a witcher and supposed to do live just like that. He already has Jaskier being close, spoiling him much more than he deserves, so if he’s _a little tired_ then it’s fine... and also what causes their trouble.

They take over a small house by the well to rest, trying to hide from the blistering sun. They’ve just taken a bath and Jaskier is in the middle massaging away tense lines in Geralt’s sides when the doors flung out of the hinges.

Geralt’s glad to still have his pants on when he pushed bard behind him and grabs for his sword. The alps aren’t supposed to attack in a horde or during the day and he has no vampire oil, so he has to rely on careful bursts of Igni and silver blade only in a small, cramped space.

The vampires are blackened head to toe from the sun and clearly desperate, their claws trying to swipe and infect Geralt with their nightmare-inducing toxin. He does his best to avoid it, but when he sees one reaching for Jaskier his feet move before his brain has time to process it and he’s throwing himself on him, holding him to the ground as sharp lines are cut into his armour and skin.

“Fuck!” he breathes through the pain and forces himself up, twisting the sword to cut off the descending hands before they reach them again.

Jaskier’s shaking under him and Geralt’s not sure if he smells his adrenalin or the toxin on his skin, but there’s a grim line to his lips.

“Go.” He pushes him up and Geralt grunts out thanks before going back to deal with the rest of alps.

He loses count, fighting to keep his fingers clutched on the blade as the toxins spread and make his arms shake, his head swim. He can’t fail, if he was alone then fine, but not with Jaskier here.

He can’t lose him. Not now, not ever, not like that.

There is a yelp and Geralt barely has the time to turn his sword to the side so it won’t hit Jaskier, angry question on the tip of his tongue, but a vial is pushed to his lips.

“The black one, right?” Jaskier’s looking at him, blue eyes earnest and desperate as Black Blood bites at Geralt’s mouth.

He nods shortly and then grabs him by the hair to push his head to the side, dropping the sword to use Ard and push the last few vampires out of the door.

The rest of the fight is easier, the toxin subdued, his senses heightened, movements much easier in the open street. It’s still not easy and Geralt ends up exhausted, collapsing on the ground as soon as the drags all the corpses to one place and sets fire to them.

The sun’s long hidden behind the clouds and mountain winds are getting more and more harsh, so they turn to get back to the town as soon as Geralt manages to get on his feet. Jaskier’s already grumbling about liars and proper warnings, fingers tapping a rhythm that no doubt will turn into a scathing song on Geralt’s arm where bard’s hand attached itself and he can’t be bothered to brush it away.

It’s nice and grounding as whispers start to flit through his head. He immune and the Black Blood fights off the alp’s poison well enough, but not completely. His eyes will stay black for a long while and it clearly muddied his mind, since he realizes the issue only when Jaskier points it out.

“You get a room and rest. I’ll stay out until it passes.” He says, harsher than intended, but each step threatens to make him fall over and he’s not sure how fast he’d be able to get up again.

And they can’t take a risk like that with the sun getting lower and lower.

Jaskier gives him an unimpressed stare, but doesn’t say a thing. In hindsight, it should’ve hinted at him planning something, because he’s still so rarely silent.

The plan turns out to be pushing Geralt into the stream as soon as the road starts to go along its length.

“What the fuck?” Geralt looks around widely, hand already reaching for a sword and his mind supplying all the dangers it knows of, all manners of monsters and troubles hiding in shadows and behind trees and rocks.

Then Jaskier is sitting down in the river as well and takes the lute out to carefully get the case wet without even a drop touching the instrument, before submerging himself in shallow stream completely. Geralt watches it without a word, mostly because cool water does wonders to his body right now.

“Come on, witcher.” Jaskier squeezes his hair and then scoops water in his hands and pours it over Geralt’s head. “Get wet while I get your cloak.” He walks to Roach and Geralt follows his instruction only because he was gonna wash out the wounds on his back anyway.

If he let himself cool down with some water on his face, it has nothing to do with- whatever Jaskier planned, which includes them both sopping wet and him in a cloak dripping water.

“Why did we need another bath?” he does ask when they start walking again, trying to shift so the cloak won’t aggravate the wounds.

Jaskier gives him a cheeky smile.

“Why, poor people in town need a warning about the utter downpour on the mountainside, probably coming to their homes in a day or two, don’t they?” he says innocently, pride and glee coming off of him in spades. “We’re even nice enough to warm them despite the very little warning they gave us about the-?” he cuts off and looks at Geralt questioningly.

“Alps.” He sighs, definitely not rewarding a pretty good idea (the fire will cause the rains soon enough, nobody would come to the mountains either way and the hood will hide his eyes well enough in the dark evening) with some information: “They’re vampires. Use poison, attack sleeping people and get black from the sun.”

Jaskier hums, his hands moving across invisible strings and Geralt can see the words of a next song tumbling in his head. He doesn’t say a word because the silly plan works and soon, they’re let into an inn with little trouble.

Geralt sits by the fireplace and feeds it a little Igni to make it roar stronger, as Jaskier goes to pay for a room and food, probably trying to haggle some discount for their trouble already.

He’s touchy when it comes to Geralt’s work and people being anything less than crystal clear with their information. It’s unnecessary, but also nice, so he never stops it.

His senses are still working too high from the potion, so he hears Jaskier talk with the innkeeper, low tones and some giggling, but can’t get the words over cracking of the fire. He does hear when bard’s heart starts hammering in his chest like crazy.

Geralt snaps his head up and turns, uncaring for who might see his face. Jaskier’s leaning over the counter, the busty lady behind it smiling sultry and trailing a hand along his arm. She’s also sneaking glances to the witcher, which is surprising, so he forces himself to focus on the sound only. He knows how people can be about bards and this town already proven to be questionable when it comes to morals (because they had to have known about alps, they pick people out slowly and this is the only other town for days).

“-my friend, I’m afraid.” Jaskier’s tone is icy cold as he pulls the hand away, but leans closer. “Let me give you fair warning, so such misunderstanding won’t happen again... should I hear a single rumour came from here about me and my friend, _and I will know if it does_, you’ll be lucky to get a stray dog to pass this forsaken town. I ruined one name already and I’m just itching to see if I can do so with a whole town... you heard about lord Edward and his song, didn’t-?”

Geralt freezes, losing focus and letting the voices get muffled again.

Jaskier called them friends. He can’t remember the last person to do so, human or not, and the single word works its way into his hears and takes root. He shouldn’t let it, he can’t let it, not without consequences, but as Jaskier struts to sit by him with a bowl of stew and a pitcher of ale, he can only let it happen.

To hell with consequences.

They get a single room, which became such a habit Jaskier doesn’t even comment on it, which Geralt is thankful for. He needs him close after what he heard and he’s terrified how much he’d be ready to explain if Jaskier needed a reason.

Their clothes are still damp, the fire did little to warm them up and the Black Blood faded away, but left Geralt tired and shivering. So he uses it as an excuse, lying on the bed and pulling Jaskier to him before bard can protest.

“Since when are you so touchy, hmm?” Jaskier smiles, wriggling against him before he settles in Geralt arms and satisfaction radiates from him, warming him up better than body heat.

He shrugs, because the answer would be too telling and just hold him close.

He tries to ignore the damp leather of gloves on his hand where one is resting against his elbow. It’s not his business.

Jaskier thinks of them as **friends**. It more than Geralt could ever hope for and he’s not going to destroy it with silly fantasies of _more_, no matter how good Jaskier feels against him.

He wakes up at sudden movement, slowly coming to Jaskier twisting in his hold to look into the window, fingers tapping at Geralt’s arm as he hums a melody.

It’s familiar. Geralt caught him doing it a few times already, in the early hours of the night or when he takes much too long to fall asleep. It’s the same every time and he suspects is something from his past, from the way he keeps his lip in a tight line and the words to himself.

He sighs and turns to bring him closer, but doesn’t say a word.

He tries not to smile when keeping him close makes bard quiet down much sooner than he ever did before.

* * *

They’re sent after a griffin hunting merchants on a busy road and Jaskier has been acting weird since the start. He’s looking around and won’t stop asking questions about griffins, so much longer than the usual needling that Geralt relented and told him whatever he wanted to know.

They hear the beast before they see it and Jaskier stays behind on its own, which only makes Geralt more worried. He forces himself to focus and tries to tell himself it might just be that Jaskier has a bad experience. They part ways occasionally, even if the bard seems to always find him again, so he might’ve come upon a monster or two.

He stomps down the worry at the knowledge how easily Jaskier’s penchant for trouble coupled with meeting monsters might lead to his death.

The griffin is hiding by a narrow ravine that’s overgrown with dark bushes, as if a mountain split and broke apart. It probably came to be when earth moved, he’s pretty sure he remembers mines opening in this area a long time ago.

The beast repels his attacks, but doesn’t try to hurt him. It doesn’t let him go away either, claws trying to grab at him whenever there’s a chance. It’s unusual and makes for a fast fight that doesn’t let him think of anything else.

Until the griffin suddenly screeches and leaps above him. Geralt twists around and blinks trough the dust, then the putrid smell of acid hits his nose at the same time he hears Jaskier’s scream.

_It’s archgriffin_ rings through his mind as he races through the blinding dust and smoke coming off from melting stone.

He comes to a shortstop and rubs his eyes, completely shocked for the first time in ages.

Jaskier’s sitting by the edge of the ravine, rope tied around his waist and its end secured to the saddle, Roach stomping nervously in place nearby. There are two griffin cubs on bard’s lap, no bigger than small children and covered in fluffy, tawny feathers.

Geralt remember his questions – how to they breed, when do they do it, do they nest. This sentimental _fucking idiot_-!

He forced himself to breathe, sheeting his sword.

The idiot probably _saved_ them. Griffin would’ve tried to make Geralt get its cubs and he would’ve killed it as a necessity, possibly never knowing the truth because archgriffin cubs only get their voice after their acid glands are fully developed and it takes a few years, long enough to get them to be the size of a boar.

The two on Jaskier’s lap are small, still soft and blind, pushing at his hands and stumbling over each other, before the mother picks them up. It’s probably the first litter of the year and the mother must’ve put the cubs between the plants, not noticing they hide a steep ravine underneath. Geralt would’ve missed it if he didn’t hear the air whistle trough and he had to grab Jaskier three times before he slipped down.

Speaking of Jaskier...

“How long?” Geralt asks sharply, stepping next to him, just in case the archgriffin decided not to leave.

Jaskier gives him a confused glance before he smiles.

“I heard there was a griffin in the forest for years, but it never attacked. It’s spring, animals breed and I wondered if that might be it.” He explains, clearly proud of himself as he picks feathers from his gloves and clothes and Geralt gives him an indulgent smile.

“Clue me in next time.” He orders, just in case, because he’s not deluding himself he’d be able to stop Jaskier from doing something like that again.

It’s not like he’s going to complain about being given a chance not to kill an innocent beast.

Jaskier watches the archgriffin put the cubs in its claws and Geralt raises an eyebrow at his whine.

“What, jealous?” he nudged his arm.

He did not expect Jaskier to whine _louder_ and drape himself on Geralt’s arm.

“Did you see how fluffy those things were?!” he says, in a voice that would be outraged if there wasn’t the cloyingly sweet smell of affection pouring off of him. “I sweat, my hearts feels squeezed like laundry in your meaty paws. Couldn’t we’ve kept one?”

Geralt snorts and shakes him off, but can’t stop smiling.

“They spit acid and it takes years until they control it.

Jaskier gapes, finally notices the puddle of melted stone still giving off smoke, and pales a little bit.

“Acid. Right. Maybe _no_ to keeping one as a pet, then.” he mumbles and unties the rope from his waist. “I still got an itch to just wrap my arms around something and squeeze...!” he bemoans.

Geralt ignore him, but doesn’t protest when they make a stop for the night much sooner and Jaskier snuggles up to him despite the night being warm enough to sleep alone.

* * *

They’re run out of the town again and Geralt’s less angry than he should be. Still pissed about the whole situation, but they lost mostly clothes and the last of bard’s hush-money, so nothing they can’t get back. He can deal with lost payment, even if he got used to actually getting it with the way Jaskier repaired his reputation. Roach is smart enough to see them run through the street and kicks the stable door open to follow, Jaskier never leaves his lute so it’s safe on his back and Geralt was planning to replace the few pieces of armour he left in the room either way. He is irritated at losing his herb satchel, but he can _replace_ those. Jaskier, should he be beheaded as the alderman threatened to for befouling his wife and daughter both, he could not.

Honestly, Jaskier’s grovelling and constant apologies get on his nerves more than anything else, because he’s never that apologetic when he should be. So he snaps, they exchange some choice words and part at the next crossroads.

Geralt tries to pretend he doesn’t know Jaskier stands there for much longer than it should take him to chose where to go or that the wind doesn’t carry salty-sour mix as it changes directions.

He pretends not to recognize royal clothes or coins bearing mint of Cidaris when they meet again and doesn’t say a word at the way it takes days for Jaskier to stop flinching at sudden movements or for his cheery demeanour to stop being so forced.

He doesn’t comment of the onslaught of songs about Marks being the one true destiny or ones that trash arranged marriages and certainly not the avalanche of those about choosing romance above family.

He does make a note to avoid Ciradris if they can help it, then lets Jaskier pay for replenishing his stock of potion ingredients and even to waste money on a new waterproof saddlebag.

* * *

The little village is hidden between marshes, forgotten by the world and so old _they never got the memo to hate witchers_, as Jaskier put it. It means people welcomed them in, ushering into a warm inn and bringing food and beer and offering help before they even had a chance to utter more than their names.

Jaskier’s in his element, sitting with the women who took their clothes and Geralt’s armour for mending happy to learn all of their local songs and try to find the right melodies for his lute.

Geralt still can’t relax, because he’s pretty sure the necrophages they fought on their way here got him with the poison even if he had Jaskier look him over during the bath and didn’t find a single scratch. Why would his heart keep on hammering in his chest and feel like it’s being squeezed in a laundry press at the same time?

He looks over children gathered around him, touching at his scars and flooding him with questions. He can’t remember the last time someone let their kid so close to him and nobody’s even watching over!

“Stop making this face or it’ll stick, Geralt.” Jaskier crouches in front of him, but he tone it worried. “Your eyes are gold as ember, I promise, so if you’d just tell me why you think-”

“Get them away.” Geralt bites out, giving the children around a glare they completely ignore.

Jaskier laughs, but does usher the children away from him and lets busy themselves with his lute before he comes back to Geralt.

“So what’ up with you, hmm?” he asks gently, crouching next to him again.

Geralt hesitates for a moment, but Jaskier never showed any prejudice, always believing his word, so maybe he will listen and help? Witchers aren’t supposed to trust, not humans and not at all, but Jaskier is different.

Staying by his side so long deserves _some_ trust.

“My heart won’t calm down.” he grunts out. “Beats too fast and feels like crushed in a fist. As soon as we walked in here.”

Jaskier gives him an incredulous look, moving his lips silently before he sits next to him.

“Is it better now?” he asks, gently, and Geralt frowns when he notices that yes, it is better, but why?

Jaskier chuckling into his arm does not help things, but he gives him a moment because he needs answers. Even if it’s obvious or ridiculous, it’ll be better than this grating helplessness.

“Geralt, the muse of my music and the light of my life...” Jaskier says, voice still bright and shaky with laughter, making Geralt stomp down unwanted thoughts that seem to resurface since the first time he let himself imagine what it might be like to be with Jaskier. “When was the last time you touched a child?” he adds, much gentler and Geralt tenses next to him.

It can’t be that. Why would children make him feel like this? He met plenty of them, saved quite a few because they’re easy prey. Why would touching one change anything?

Jaskier sighs next to him and puts a hand to witcher’s hair, brushing through them.

“It’s this weird feeling we people get when we see cute animals or small children. Like sponge wrung out of water, right?” he explains and Geralt hums an agreement. It’s still ridiculous, but it fits and he’d take the dumbest explanation over none whatsoever.

He can deal with that, he just needs to avoid children...

They stay a week and Geralt does not, despite his efforts, manage to avoid the fearless and curios kids for longer than a few hours at most. They’re fascinated with him and enthralled by Jaskier, at least a few close by at any given moment. It starts off irritating, but with days passing Geralt gets used to it and it becomes-

Pleasant, in a calm, warm way he isn’t used to at all. Jaskier was right – being allowed to be close to children without having to look over his shoulder in search of parents before they see him first and start to scream is _much different_ than just seeing them glance at him or pipe up with a question from their parents grasp. He’s not supposed to like this, there is little chance he’ll find another place like that and he doesn’t plan on coming back here without reason, but he’s not supposed to stay in one place without reason either and he let Jaskier find one excuse after another, day after day, until he runs out of even the flimsiest ones.

Jaskier doesn’t seem to agree about forgetting about the place and leaving it to keep its peace. He’s composing as they leave and all but making a roadmap for the small village, with landmarks and surrounding areas in every other lyric.

Geralt doesn’t find it in himself to make him stop.

He does reach to brush fingers alongside a braid in his hair. On the third day Jaskier sneakily grounded him under a dozen of children and even got them to help hin choose what _flowers_ he put into the plaits. Geralt managed to shake the flowers off in a day and the braids in three, despite bard’s putting and grumbling, but when they took a bath before leaving and Jaskier’s fingers start to twist the strands he was supposed to just be brushing, he didn’t say a word and let him feel sneaky.

It keeps hair out of his face. That’s the only reason he allows himself to acknowledge.

* * *

Geralt forgets about most towns they’re run out of now and it’s another new thing. He doesn’t need to keep the names, because it’s not his reputation that chases them, but Jaskier’s penchant for fucking the worst people he could choose. It means that a few months are usually enough to make people forget or at least stop being angry enough to do anything.

Mirn is different. He parted with bard for winter and now, as snows started to melt, he was following a spread of a new song along borders of Aedirn when he heard the rumours about a bard jailed for heresy. It’s only then he realizes that Mirn was called Demirna a century ago and remembers why it’s high on the list of his places to avoid.

He’s lucky to find Jaskier only on the third day after his sentencing – because they like to dress their insanity in an illusion of order here – but it’s still three days _too long_. He’s locked in a cell, with heavy chains keeping his arm by the ground. His chemise is torn from one of the lashes and bloodied, but the worst is the thread pushes trough his lips: the knot by the corner of his mouth, going above his lips and then below them, the line soaked with blood and the needle swaying at the end of the strand kept there for further work.

Geralt knows the rules. A stitch and a lash performed in public, one a day, punishment for heresy and going against the godly order of the world by rejecting a soul-bond. From what he gathered, Jaskier tried to charm up a girl and mentioned he doesn’t plan on acting on his mark. He was locked an hour later and sentences within a day, then the punishment started.

Geralt smashes the chain’s to pieces and can’t find it in himself to regret killing the guard to get into the prison as he carries Jaskier out and into the woods.

He uses small dagger to cut the thread as close to the skin as possible, then covers the punctures with numbing paste before he makes Jaskier open his mouth to pick up the pieces inside. He gives him herbs to keep by the wounds to make them heal faster and tries to ignore the silence that suddenly grates at his senses. He washes the split skin on his back and soothe it with a healing salve and roughly stitches the chemise together.

There is a pattern of Jaskier silenced only by pain and he hates it.

Jaskier’s silent for two days, barely moving and only picking at loose strands from the lining of his gloves, twisting loose threads into knots before dropping them into the fire.

“They took my lute.” Is the first thing he says, huddled by the fire.

Geralt shouldn’t be going back, it’s not worth the trouble even if the lute is elven and carries some magic (and it must, to have stayed by Jaskier’s side with barely a scratch for so long). He does so anyway, because Jaskier finally spoke again and his eyes stopped looking so dead, even if all that came back is pure misery.

It he killed a few more guard than necessary when going through the prison’s storage; if the podium used for public punishment and still covered in dry, crimson patches was set on fire; if a few law enforcers lost fingers still carrying face trace of Jaskier’s blood; well, nobody need to know that.

Jaskier clings to the lute like drowning man to a lifeline and it takes Geralt ages to convince him to put it into the case so they can ride away.

“Another town to avoid, hmm?” he says, because bard’s silent again behind him and he hates it.

He doesn’t expect the furious glare thrown at him, not the way Jaskier snaps: “Don’t you fucking dare blame me for the insanity they practice here!”

Geralt should defend himself, because it’s the last thing he was implying, but the days of unnerving silence left him easily irritated and he snaps too.

“How many town did you get us kicked out of, hm?” he rolls his eyes, because he can’t even be properly angry when there are still scabs healing around Jaskier’s lips. Not when he can still smell pain and misery coming off of him under the scent of the herbs and healing salve. “Do you even try to be discreet? It might do you some good to sometimes pass on a lay when it could land in _prison_, you know.”

Jaskier looks like he would very much kick him if they weren’t both riding Roach and such an act didn’t carry a risk of sending him to the ground. He does jab fingers between plates of witcher’s armour, straight between his ribs, hard.

“I know it’s been months since you got the honours to being reason for out latest sudden departure-” he starts and Geralt can’t help but huff out a laugh. “Okay, _fine_, maybe closer to seasons but let not be petty.” Jaskier jabs at his ribs again before settling down, carefully finding a way to lay his face safely against Geralt’s back. “Of you miss avoiding stones so much I’m sure something can be arranged.”

Geralt rolls his eyes again and doesn’t answer. There is a though picking at his brain, half-conscious, but incessant. It’s only weeks later, when they pass a town and people barely let them pass under their glares and muttered curses and get throw out because Jaskier decided it’d be a good place to flirt as he tries to buy some bread on the market, that it clarifies.

It’s been months since the last time it was Geralt’s reputation that had them chased off. Nowadays, if it happens at all, it’s because Jaskier got in trouble. It’s been months and when Geralt thinks about it, Jaskier seems to find trouble much less often in town and villages and cities that already heard his songs – or rather, ones where Geralt is unlikely to be thrown out.

The implication hit shard, like a boulder crashing into Geralt’s chest and lodging in his throat. The way Jaskier starts sneaking worried glances at him when he flirts and before he leaves for a night only makes it worse.

Geralt has no idea how to say nothing will make him push Jaskier away, nor how to thank for the way he puts himself into harm’s way.

So he does the best next thing and picks up a few contracts to gather monster parts for mages to fund a few new clothes for the bard who lost his things in Mirn, since the long winter meant there was no spare coin for it.

He loathes working with mages and gets manipulated seven times across four contracts, but the way Jaskier’s eyes light up at the sight of bright silk is worth anything.

When the smile pulls skin around his lips, three faints scars show and Geralt wishes secretly his eyes weren’t so keen.

* * *

The contract went fine enough if you discount a cut on his arm, but when Geralt comes back to their camp outside the town he finds a tied up boy on the ground and Jaskier’s huddled to Roach’s side, a small knife wedges into his leg. It takes a considerable amount of restrain not to snap the neck of a brat who tough he’d get an easy steal.

“-way to wake up, I tell you! Certainly would’ve thought of a better thing to do than just tackle him if I was fully awake.” It’s only because Jaskier’s fine enough to prattle on as Geralt takes the knife out and takes care of the wound, which means he’ll be okay. “Say, how were the apples they sold at the market? Roach deserves a bucket for kicking him straight into the tree and knocking him out!”

Geralt hums along and lets Jaskier talk his adrenaline and anxiety away, marvelling at the way there is not a trace of fear in the air again. At least none that came from Jaskier.

The night is awful – the cut from the echinops’ thorn wasn’t enough to paralyse him, but enough to plague him with nightmares and visions that have him wake up in cold sweat. Jaskier’s doesn’t say a word as he hands him a wet rag and a fresh shirt not less than five times and he just hopes he doesn’t talk in the delirium.

When they go get the payment Geralt drags the boy into the market too, letting his mothers squirm and apologise until Jaskier sighs and kicks at his shin. He tells her to keep a better eye on the brat, but leaves it at that despite anger swelling in him with every limping step Jaskier takes.

He’s angry enough to feel glee when the women pushed her daughter at Jaskier and offers additional payment in _apology_ and as _thanks for witcher’s help,_ but then he sees Jaskier’s face fall before he hides it behind a fake smile as he pushes the girl back and only then does he notice her shaking.

The glee fades, leaving a sour taste in his mouth. He calls for the payment and asks for a bag of apples (because Roach definitely deserves those) but they set out right after.

The venom must still affect him, that’s the only explanation for the emotions overtaking him so easily and why he asks:

“Why did you refuse?” There is a silence so he explains: “That girl...”

Jaskier gives him a glare that would’ve made a lesser man whimper and does make a witcher look away.

“I get her thinking, if that’s what you’re asking. A tumble in the sheets for the pathetic excuse of the robbery... but I’m not so desperate nor petty enough to take advantage of girl to feel better.” He starts, voice even colder than his hard eyes as he walks faster to feed Roach another apple and Geralt makes her walk slower in silent apology.

Because he does understand it, now, when the boy isn’t in front of his face and the stench of Jaskier’s blood is carried away by wind before it reaches his nose. He’s not that petty or cruel either, normally, or this blind. Must be the venom, or at least that’s what he tells himself because alternatives (all involving Jaskier) are dangerous to think about.

“I’m claiming some for having to even explain it to you.” Jaskier waves an apple in the air before biting into it greedily, silent until he’s spitting out pits. “I still taste bile.” He mumbles, making a face and reaches for another apple. “God, my bones still feel like lead too! I hate this.” He kicks at the dirt on the road. “I hate that she even did something like that! I wanted to grab her apologies and push them right back into her throat.” He looks like he’s still only half-convinced that going back to do so wouldn’t be worth it.

“Couldn’t feel that bad.” Geralt tries to sound soothing, but only gets a slap at his knee and another glare.

“Felt like lava seeping into my bones and cooling into stone, Geralt.” He snaps before busying himself with another apple. “Still feel like this and those apple must be spoiled because all I taste is acid.”

Geralt doesn’t believe any apples will help with _that_ aftertaste, but doesn’t comment.

He does stop tying Roach up, so she can run or kick around freely without the need for Jaskier to put himself in danger. It’s not like he thinks bard will run away on her anymore, after all.

He still feels guilty and on edge, about the wound and over Mirn still, and over so many other things that piled up across the moths and months and by now years they spend together that it spills over and makes him restless to repay bard, in any way.

They set up an early camp when he notices Jaskier’s limp worsen and he uses an excuse of _teaching him something useful _to have him go along as he sets up snares instead of hunting their dinner.

He sits to sharpen his sword and feels Jaskier watch him, or more specifically, the broach on the hilt. It’s not the first time, but he never asks and Geralt plans on keeping it that way forever. Blaviken is last things he wants to talk about with him, especially so soon after nightmares full of Renfri and Stregobor and Marilka and so many other of his mistakes, but the guilt is still pressing heavily against his lungs and he can’t find the strength to keep his lips closed.

“Ask already.” He sighs and puts the whetstone away, his fingers circling the tarnished gold and dulled, green stones.

Jaskier puts away the lute he was strumming on absentmindedly and sits closer, putting his head to Geralt arm and covers his hand with his own.

“Whose was it?” he asks gently and Geralt still wishes to never speak of Renfri, but he does.

In stilted words and half-broken sentences, enough to let Jaskier know that Blaviken was just another _mage’s trap he was stupid enough to get lured into_. Bard deserves at least that much, after spending so much time trying to fix what that mistake did to Geralt and his reputation.

Jaskier doesn’t ask anything else, only waits trough the silences and listens to vague pieces of a puzzle he must’ve been thinking about for ages. When Geralt runs out of words that can force themselves out his throat, bard talks a little about the broach – about the stones and the carvings and the metal, things no witcher would notice, but that seem obvious to him.

It makes Geralt wonder just who he is and where he came from – makes him remember royal clothes and the Ciradris’ coins – but he doesn’t ask and accepts the whetstone back with a thankful grunt. It doesn’t really matter – if Jaskier could accept him and stick around while thinking Blaviken happened as rumours told, he can deal with the complete nothing he knows of his past.

He doesn’t sleep, for the first time in a while scared to do so, not even sure when he started feeling safe enough in his own mind to do it (but somehow sure it has mostly to do with Jaskier). So he notices when bard gets up to scribble something on parchment before he starts tearing small pieces to feed them into the fire.

* * *

Geralt ignores the rumour the first few times he hears it – people spread many about witchers and Jaskier could probably talk a whole day about the times people wrote Geralt off as dead or runaway when the hunt took longer than they expected.

But then the rumour hits him for the fourth time, about a witcher running away with the money, this time with the detail of wolf’s medallion on his neck and he can’t stand it.

Jaskier’s gaze is calculating when he explains it to him.

“Guess I’m not going?” he sighs and slump on the rickety bed. Geralt took care of a kelpie by the river and the fisherman’s wife let them stay in his fishing shack for the night.

Geralt nods, opening his mouth to explain, but Jaskier is faster.

“Guess whatever killed a witcher must too dangerous to watch from any distance.” He says, and the look he throws Geralt is as worried as it is compassioned. “You sure you won’t end like him?” he asks gently, and Geralt almost drops the mortar he’s using to replenish some of the potions.

Because all he told Jaskier are the rumours, expecting him to believe them and only hoping he’d understand his need to repay the broken promise at best. To have him believe the other witcher killed and not a cheat – have him say it before Geralt even suggested it-

It twists something warm and fragile in his chest, burrowing it into his heart, right where there seems to be a place in the shape of Jaskier’s touch and carrying an echo of his voice. Geralt has no idea how or when it happened, but it makes him dizzy with sudden worry about how it will end.

He fucks up every time someone gets close to him. How long till he makes a mistake with Jaskier too?

He forces himself to breathe in and out, to make an effort to count the seasons they spend together. Jaskier stuck this long, stayed with him through so much, he deserves more credit.

“Well, I was planning to visit my family either way.” Jaskier makes a grimace and it’s rare to hear him even mention them, so rare it steals all of Geralt’s attention. “Heard few rumours too, you know. Got a girl barely out of cradle whose parents I need to scandalize enough to break the engagement and a bastard of a cousin to congratulate for gaining king’s favour. A few other things in Hamm and Oxenfurt, so how about we meet back up in a month or so? Does Vizima work for you, I’d heard about a lovely tailor there...”

“Sure.” Geralt smiles and goes back to work, letting Jaskier talk about laces and embroidery even if he understands maybe half of it. He carefully remembers every city Jaskier mentioned, for later, but doesn’t ask.

Jaskier didn’t push so he won’t either. They have time to get to know more – and for the first time in ages he feels he would like to both know about Jaskier and maybe let him know about himself.

* * *

Geralt blames the summer heat for losing track of time and the fact that his was _the fifth time_ he had to fight noonwraiths in a week or two and his eyes were still not fully healed after the last blinding. That’s why he only prepared for them and completely missed the descriptions matching a wraith much more.

It was also dangerously strong and Geralt was out of spectre oil to help.

Jaskier’s scream as a claw flayed his side still made his blood boil. He manages to send the wraith off with an improvised spell and runs to the bard.

The wound wasn’t deep, luckily, but it was long and run by the curve of his ribs, which meant it was a bitch to stitch. Especially when Jaskier tried to get up every other minute, looking over the field as if looking for something.

“I send it away, stay put already!” Geralt snapped, cursing when the needle bends in his fingers.

Jaskier sighed and laid on his side, but his eyes keep on roaming across the fields they were sent to clear before the harvest is lost.

“There.” He points out as soon as Geralt helps him sit up to wrap strips of his chemise around his torso in lieu of bandages. Jaskier didn’t blink as he did it so he looks up to where he’s pointing, hoping he wasn’t poisoned and isn’t hallucinating. “They buried her by that scarecrow” he adds and Geralt sighs, feeling a decade older.

The people were desperate for his help, panic over losing the harvest that’s miraculously bountiful in the awfully dry summer. He knows there are no miracles, but still hoped for something better than sacrificial magic. He finds the body and takes care of it to let the spirit rest. He takes the necklace of wooden beads from it first –he remembers a little boy in the village, wearing a matching one.

As they walk back, Jaskier’s still shaken, by the wound or wraith’s vision or both, so Geralt lets him sit by when he takes the payment and a small pleasure in lying that they should burn the field and hope that the _wraith’s malice_ is gone by the next year. The draught is not bad enough to starve them to death so he doesn’t feel any guilt.

Geralt goes out and finds the little boy with a necklace sitting by Jaskier on a crossroad, bard already composing. He crouches by them and gives the necklace, explaining that at least now the girl is no longer suffering and feels another decade older as the boy tells him he saw it once and recognized the dress.

Wraith must’ve been fresh, to still have any memories to give Jaskier or keep any of its human looks. It was still powerful enough (felt enough pain) to lure noonwraiths in.

They leave right after Geralt brings Roach around and sits Jaskier on the saddle, to hell with heat and low supplies – he wouldn’t stomach anything from here and the frown with which Jaskier refuses bread offered by a lade as they pass her home tells him he shares the sentiment.

“_Do not course the devil, for he’s a wounded soul. From pan inflected with no cause no good can ever grow... _ hm.” Jaskier tries out a few melodies, humming along. “What do you think, too literal?” he asks, fingers rubbing at the corner of his lip.

Geralt shrugs, because he’s got no idea about music, but after a moment he says “_Without_ cause. And the third was best.”

Jaskier smiles briefly and hums to melody for a while, matching words to the tune.

“_Do not condemn the devil, he’s a tormented soul. Lonely and forget ‘midst the golden fields he roams..._” Jaskier sighs and taps his fingernail on the lute. “How petty would it look if just put the name in the lyrics?”

Geralt gives him a knowing look, because they both know it’s a stupid question. There is no need for a namedrop when Jaskier can describe a place down to the types of chicken they raise and their colours.

Jaskier rolls his eyes.

“If they’re ready to kill, they should be ready to face the consequences.” He bites out, voice full of venom as anger wafts off him in sharp waves.

Geralt brushes a hand along Roach’s neck and doesn’t say anything. Jaskier knows what it means and makes a face.

“So what, I should just _accept_ that some monster we find will pay with their lives for other’s mistakes?” he asks, strings of the lute making a dull twang as his grips it tightly.

Geralt can’t help but think about royal siblings, ready to love in secret, but not to face the consequences of it and an innocent child who had to pay when she was caught up in their punishment. About Adir killed by a striga nobody warned him about and who, had Geralt not came to Temeria following rumours, would’ve been laid to rest in shame and without peace of mind in a hidden grave who knows where.

“Sometimes,” He starts, reaching to grab Jaskier’s wrist and pushes a tendon to make his grip loosen. “Sometimes people are stupid and there is nothing you can do about it, except hope they do better. Otherwise – you will be the last fair man among corpses and wastelands.”

Jaskier looks at him briefly before turning to glare as his hand. Geralt takes his own back and grabs for Roach’s reigns.

As far as he knows, song ends up free of name-dropping or detailed description.

* * *

The mercenary was much more competent than the one sent by lord Edward, which in itself tells quite a bit. He manages to lure Geralt away from the camp with a golem acting as a werewolf for long enough to reach Jaskier.

Geralt finds them by the fire, the lute high above bard’s head and blocking a dagger shining with poison. Geralt react on instinct and sends a wave of fire, relishing in a pained scream as he runs closer to stab the bastard trough the neck.

“Fuck.” He regrets it a moment later. “Should’ve kept him to know what he wanted.” He sighs and looks Jaskier over.

There is an actual scratch on the lute, uneven and wet so to witcher’s eyes it must be the poison and not the blade itself, but the bard it untouched even if severely shocked judging by the smell... right before it’s replaced with a boiling fury that makes Geralt groan and move back as it burns his nose.

“Oh, sorry... give me a moment.” Jaskier puts the lute away and rubs his face, pressing hands to his eyes until it must hurt. His smells weakens, turning hot and wet before it hangs off him in a dry, dusty cloud. “Fucking hell, he really- fuck.” He sighs and flops onto the ground, making a face when his foot lands on a hand of the corpse and kicks it away.

Geralt’s not sure where he got used to death, when the shock over assassin even coming close was replaced with anger and resignation. He’s not sure he likes it.

“So you know who send him.” He says, just to say anything as he uses Aard to push the body away and sits by Jaskier, who is still muttering curses under his breath.

It takes a moment for him to get talking, but when he does...

“My cousin, got a cushy job from a king. Guess he really felt insulted when I didn’t let him buy my return to the family.” He laughs, a broken and bitter sound that hangs in the air. “Guess we know my lute is definitely magic.” He adds, smile fake and brittle as he picks up the instrument, wiping the scratch with his sleeve.

Geralt scents the air, to make sure Jaskier is not hurt or too distressed.

“Didn’t you want to?” he asks slowly, the picture of Jaskier’s family vague from rare mentions, but he knows enough to guess. “Go back, I mean.”

Jaskier snorts and kicks as dirt, throwing it into the fire and making it crackle as a stone hits the burned wood and breaks it apart.

“Fuck no.” He shakes his head and rubs his gloved hands together, thumb stroking at a wrist. “I had reasons to leave, Geralt. I’m not going anywhere till-!” he stops himself, giving Geralt a panicked glance before he clears his throat. “I’m staying. Fuck Fe- fuck my cousin and my family if they think I can be bought or scared!”

And, well, Geralt can’t think of anything to say to that, too happy with a clear confirmation that Jaskier decided to stay for the time being.

He didn’t say _with him_, but he knows him well enough by now.

* * *

The next month is so full of contracts that Geralt _almost_ suspects the mysterious cousin Fe-something of using magic to kill them by the means of monsters. He doesn’t, if only because of the fact that the next mercenary is smart enough to take one look at Geralt’s sword by his throat before he promises to go away and warns all the guilds not to cross them (again). Jaskier never stopping his wash in the river as an arrow was barely knocked out of course straight at his head might’ve added to it and Geralt’s feels weirdly proud and mournful at the same time. Either way, it means that the cousin has money and possibly some clout wherever he lives, but not much reputation or reach outside of there.

Even if it was magic, Geralt can deal with monsters as long as need be.

At least he thought so, but-

Gravier gets to his side and when they try to get some peace in a town in the valley they’re chased with stones and screaming and pigs let loose on the street.

The rain leads to infection that sends him into a night of delirium.

Then he’s crowded by fishermen begging him to kill a monster and he recognizes selkimore from their tales.

He agrees, sending Jaskier to the small tavern that feeds the man between the work, but he needs a moment to steel himself and force his hand to grip the sword.

Apparently, even a witcher has limits.

Not enough to agree to a _royal wedding_, at least not until the bath and the strange, sudden _talk about feelings_ that Jaskier starts – which might have something to do with him seeing the striga scar by his neck for the first time, and definitely has something to do which his family. He doesn’t seem like a royal, but with Oxenfurt education and his perfect penmanship he noticed and the cousin getting a job by the side of the King, Geralt suspects he’s was born high enough to hope _performance at Calanthe’s court_ will reach their ears and maybe stop future mercenaries.

There is very little nobles won’t tolerate for the chance to brag and, if Geralt’s honest, he’s surprised that Jaskier is known enough to get such invitation. But then, they don’t spend all their times together and bard must’ve found some way to survive every winter – he’s been mentioning that one countess for a while now and Geralt doesn’t know why bile raises to his throat at the thought she might be at the betrothal – so maybe it’s not that surprising. Geralt avoids nobles of any kind like a plague, so how would he know what they like at a given moment?

The talk is – unexpected and with his nerves and patience so frayed, he lets Jaskier pull him in instead of ignoring him until he gave up.

“I’m not your friend.” tastes sour in his mouth and the way it seems to make Jaskier hurt is almost enough to force him to correct himself.

It’s not just friendship. He’s not sure what they are, because they’re much more of a couple than Geralt saw in many marriages, but he would never risk asking and scaring Jaskier away. He wants him, needs him in his life or his minds goes frazzled as if a bolt of lightning hit him, last weeks of winter spend tracking him down so he can at least know he is safe even if it’ll be a while before they meet again.

He doesn’t wish for Jaskier to want _him_, because it can't end well. Just because Geralt is pretty damn sure he has no mark doesn’t mean he should settle for, well, someone like him. He's not good enough, can't be good enough.

For travel and protection and inspiration, maybe. For caring and love and relationships?

He can’t and he won’t risk losing Jaskier completely when he realizes it.

“I need no one.” He repeats and tries to ignore the air that stinks like heating metal, metallic like blood. “And the last thing I want is someone needing me.” He adds, forcing himself to look Jaskier in the eyes.

That’s what does it, the crestfallen look. The soft-spoken _Yet – here we are_ that burrows into his heart where Jaskier’s already taking up more space than anyone in his life and weights on him.

It’s the little things as well. The way this shitty month tore down at Jaskier too. He run out of new clothes and repaired a doublet with two or three others, he could smell it. He’s taken to sleeping on Geralt’s spare tunic. He’s jittery when they make camp and there are dark circles under his eyes.

He clearly needs a break and if he wishes to take it at a royal betrothal, Geralt can bare it for one evening.

So he agrees. Takes the time to bring them through a mountain he planned to visit this year for herbs and where Jaskier should find some ember to smooth that scratch on his lute.

He watches him cover the whole instrument, resigning himself to helping it dry so they won’t stay whole day here (even if he’s a little tempted). He notices the laces ribbons that cover the wood, hiding the geometric markings and white ink that fills them, easy to recognize as elven by the twisting pattern and the way white lines shimmer with rainbows in the light.

It must interfere with the sound. It does make it look human-made.

He lets Jaskier drag him to the court, finds a small distraction by meeting Mousesack and takes pleasure in making Jaskier out to be a eunuch and tries not to think about the possessiveness that surged up, adding to the petty feeling that made him do it.

Because Jaskier shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be looking for anyone. He has his countess de Stael that Geralt saw him exchange smiles and pleasantries with earlier, countess he hates for no reason.

There is also the place. They’re in a royal castle, Calanthe’s castle, Jaskier can’t make enemies here. There are no stupid lordlings to offend here, ones who would send a thug to rough Jaskier up and Geralt can scare them away. This is Calanthe’s court and they will send assassins to take Jaskier's life for the smallest of slights or simplest mistakes.

Even now, the lord was threatening wrong person because Geralt he knows for a fact Jaskier’s ass is as smooth as marble, a point of way too much pride for the bard. He could’ve been killed, for nothing, and it makes something ugly rear up in Geralt, ugly enough to use underhanded tricks with little care for Jaskier’s complaining.

He tolerates the talks, the lies, the queen.

Lies himself about manticores and their tails, sees grimace flash on Jaskier’s face.

Jaskier, for whom queen didn’t even spare a glance before mocking him, but who saw actual beasts, who _run at one_ with nothing but a rope to keep the tail away from himself. There is no music anymore, because bard’s hand is griping his lute hard enough to probably cut his fingers.

The look is probably meat to get him to behave, but it’s so pained that Geralt suddenly is aware of things other than his petty little tantrum. Jaskier looks crestfallen – maybe at them being potentially run out, his reputation truly ruined. He probably didn’t even get paid yet, _fuck_, Geralt needs to calm down (and stop glaring at countess the Stael, no matter how many pretty looks she sends Jaskier or the drinks her servant brings him). She’s pretty, plump, obviously rich and appreciative of art judging by her jewellery.

Jaskier deserves it. Deserves plush beds and court rooms, not rocky ground and filthy inns. The least Geralt can do is not fuck this up for him, as payment for all Jaskier deals with on the daily by staying with a witcher.

He can’t quite stop the mocking toast before it slips past his mouth, but keeps quiet after that. He could deal with angry nobles, would like to if he’s honest, but Jaskier’s human. He’s mortal, easy to hurt and without the endless time to wait out the outrage.

So he lets Eist take over and doesn’t speak up again.

_There is a simplicity in killing monsters, isn’t there?_ Calanthe says and he wishes it was true.

But he remembers Renfri and the striga and the crestfallen look on Jaskier’s face as the nobles brought up Blaviken. A man dragging his badly-matched soulmate trough the street. Oh, how he wishes he could go back to Kaer Morhen, before he truly became a witcher, to naivety that made him think there is anything simple about monsters and humans, about dealing with them.

It’s those thoughts, past creeping into them that makes him reckless and stupid.

Enough to go against Calanthe in her own court.

Enough to jump into the whirlwind of magic.

Enough to mock the ties of destiny that cursed his life, only to have they bind him even tighter in the next moment.

_He can’t stay._ He doubts anyone would try to kill him now, even at queen’s word, but he can’t stay here.

He barely got used to having Jaskier with him and look how well that worked out – scars on bard’s body, his own family sending mercenaries, not a flinch as an arrow misses his head or a corpse cools on the ground. How much worse would he twist a child?

As if he didn’t know what a Child Surprise given to witchers will turn into, as he didn’t see the results in his every reflection, and he just brought it upon an innocent kid.

_No, not just a kid_, he thinks, vaguely aware Jaskier is following him, of dragging him along across the courtyard. _A princess_, as if it couldn’t get worse. No good ever came with him coming close to a princess. He needs to leave before he fucks up an innocent life even more.

There is a buzz in his ears so he doesn’t hear what Jaskier’s saying, but _striga_ cuts through his mind like an arrow trough air and he’s twisting with his fist up before he’s fully aware what he is doing, his neck jolting with a phantom of stabbing pain.

He’s breathing hard, panicked, so the stench of pain hits him at once, hot and heady in the air, his skin feeling as if scalding water poured all over him.

“Fuck you- Geralt!” Jaskier gasps and if Geralt didn’t hear and feel the ribs break under his touch, he’d recognize the way each breath and spoken word makes them shift and scrape in Jaskier’s chest.

His breath and voice. Why does he always take them away when he hurts him?

Geralt picks Jaskier up, as gently as he can, before putting him onto Roach. He sits behind him, to keep bard sideway and curled up close to his chest, to put no more strain on his body.

He should’ve run. Geralt knows this and expected this, but Jaskier stayed, so he selfishly takes advantage of that.

“Maybe you’ll find your soulmate, after all.”

Geralt huffs out a laugh, surprised and truly broken out of his miserable thoughts, because why would Jaskier mention it now?

“Maybe it’s the child.” He says and Geralt almost wants to believe it, if only because it would mean it wasn’t his fault, but he can’t. He did this and there is no denying that or dressing it up in pretty lies. “There are platonic ones, you know, despite all the _fucking world_ so obsessed with sex ones. Maybe it’s just destiny being a bitch about being ignored and deciding to force your hand.” Jaskier makes a face and Geralt breathes in deeper, relieved when he doesn’t smell any pain. “Or maybe I’m wrong. You can still, I don’t know, visit once a decade and send some coins. I don’t think there’s a rulebook to Child Surprises.” Then Jaskier pales and stinks of anxiety and that sickly-sweet smell Geralt never figured out.

“Are you hurt?” Geralt cringes asking this, but if there is something wrong beside the ribs... if in the mess of the court fight Jaskier got hurt, if _that magic_ hit him-

Jaskier shakes his head and Geralt can breathe again. He does notice Jaskier covering his hand with the sleeve and it must be the deep breath, because he suddenly smells _Marked skin._

It’s a little bit surprising, even if it probably shouldn’t be. He assumed Jaskier was blank and that’s why he was travelling with him. It can’t be just his family, because he could run to find his mark, not idly move in circles with Geralt. If he has a mark, why doesn’t he pursue it?

It’s not dead, that skin smells different still, even if Geralt has no word to describe it.

“So. Maybe it won’t be bad. You might get a place to stay, between months on the road. It’d be nice, if only for a few decades, right? How old are you, couple hundreds, it’d be a nice change...”

Geralt listens to him but his minds wanders against his will as he looks at Jaskier and lets his mind bring up all the silly, impossible fantasies he tried his best to ignore. Of them together, of having Jaskier for himself, of keeping him forever. Of finally belonging if not somewhere, then to someone. The fantasy of trusting another person enough to keep them close, even for the worst parts.

He had those fantasies back when he just started, before the world taught him what exactly it thinks of those like him. He kept those locked tightly, but never could truly forget them. Back then, he always assumed that it would be him dragging a partner across the continent, and now he wonders for a moment if it’ll come to pass, but with a child in his trail.

Still, he never- not like-

Not _a home_, like Jaskier clearly talks about now. It's- a nice idea. He can't do this, bard’s shallow breaths reminds him exactly why he’d never be good enough for Jaskier, but he imagines – the child, then Jaskier, the talk during the bath and a home-

Wind changes as they turn at a crossroads.

The soulmark. He can still smell a soulmark and Jaskier still wastes time with him. He’s torn between awe and guilt, because it’s something he’d never deserve, but which sends a wave of warmth down to his very bones.

He wonders if it’s the countess that is matched to him and feels vicious satisfaction that Jaskier chose him over her. He remembers them cling together, after the magic dissolved, as he runs from the room. Then he smells the bruising skin and remembers that all Jaskier got for his choice was broken ribs.

They ride until he can find a village with a healer and busies himself with repaying for her services, then watches over Jaskier trough a night of fever and tries to ignore how his name slips from bard’s lips time after time.

He locks up all the silly fantasies up again, before they overwhelm him.

The image of home now has Jakier – _is_ Jaskier.

For the first time in his life Geralt wonders what his mark was. If there’s just a chance it was a small flower, stubborn enough that only taking skin got rid of it, just like the weeds never seem to die off and Jaskier doesn’t seem to leave his side.

* * *

Jaskier replaced his gloves before Geralt returned from healer’s contract. So he doesn’t ask and bites down on any questions that might come to him and squashes any hopes of the Mark having anything to do with him.

Jaskier would’ve mentioned it.

_Honestly, if I was making a move on you I would be far more direct because you can be as thick as a boulder. _he told him once and Geralt’s going to respect that.

Jaskier doesn’t talk, so it must mean nothing.

It’s doesn’t change anything between them, just a few more thoughts for Geralt to keep to himself. Jaskier is still with him, that must be enough – will be enough.

The Mark still gave way to new fear breeding in Geralt’s mind and his nightmares – that of Jaskier simply not having found his soulmate and using their travels to do so; of Jaskier leaving as he does so and Geralt forced into the lonely silence again.

He can’t. He can’t even imagine it, let alone live through it, so he tries to do what he can to keep Jaskier with him. He explains more about monsters, doesn’t wait for excuse of a wound to let Jaskier ride with him, describes his work as he makes potions and oils and gathers herbs. Tells how he can smell his emotions, hear his hear, see the minute movements in his body, how potions enhance that even more. Shows him how to harvest parts from monsters and lets him help with that. When they pass a market in Rinde, he buys a small dagger and give it to Jaskier, then starts teaching him simple moves to defend himself.

Anything he can think of that would make Jaskier feel more wanted by him.

Anything to keep him by his side, no matter what destiny might’ve planned for him.

Slowly, a comfortable silence starts to fall around them and Geralt treats is as a win. There is no more forced talk, Jaskier anxious as he babbles without much sense, as if he was scared he’ll be sent away in the first beat of silence.

The quite falls often, as they make camp, as Geralt hunts, as they take baths, as Jaskier composes and Geralt cares for his weapons. It’s light and pleasant and he so hopes it means Jaskier is no longer afraid.

* * *

His fear, however, never fades completely, so one evening, as Geralt help Jaskier sneak back to an inn, he finally asks:

“Why do you do it?”

The look Jaskier gives him is actually _worried_.

“Because to be a _bard_ I need my _lute_ and-”

Geralt shakes his head, but when he opens his mouth he can’t find the right words, ones that won’t betray too much and won’t lead conversation into any dangerous topic.

“Why sleep around, when you have a Mark?” he settles on, as they leave town.

“So you saw it.” Jaskier says, falsely deadpan against his back and Geralt reaches to cover gloved hand on his stomach with his own palm.

“Suspected it.” He admits, because he did wonder a few times if maybe, just maybe he was mistaken, but clearly not. “I didn’t see the shape, just something on your hand after the-“ words get stuck in his throat.

“After Cintra.”

“I smelt the Mark, then. Skin smells – different, where it’s Marked, but the leather covered it.” He explains, and not for the first time wishes he saw the Mark, right before being thankful he didn’t. He’s not sure if knowing it’s not his (because if can’t be) would be better than this uncertainty. “Got curious why...” he trails off.

Jaskier falls silent, for a while, for long enough for Geralt to worry that he messes up by mentioning the soulmarks at all.

“You sing all about the perfect matches.” He says, desperate for any answer, even if it was to make him shut up and never bring it up again.

He gets an explanation that, in hindsight, fits Jaskier so perfectly it seems unnatural Geralt never realised it.

_I like sex and I like people and making them happy. _doesn’t that sum the bard up to the T? Just like the way his scent turns anxious, clearly worried about Geralt’s reaction. As if he could ever mock him for trying to care for people and making their lives better, as much as he can.

As if it wasn’t something he’d so love to be able to do himself.

“It’s probably stupid, but if my questionable reputation is a cost to someone’s shred of happiness, I don’t care.”

Geralt can’t help but smile at that.

“I noticed that.” He says, gently, holding onto Jaskier’s hand in silent thanks.

* * *

The fear never gets away, and when they part for a winter it festers into an infection that plagues Geralt with nightmares and doesn’t even let him meditate, his thoughts too loud to flow, his mind betraying him as it lets out all the fantasies and all the wishes he kept under lock for so long.

It’s barely half a winter when he starts looking for a djinn, hoping they truly can break even destiny’s bonds. He doesn’t notice when snows melt and spring comes.

He barely registers Jaskier appearing by his side or what he’s saying.

Sleep. He needs to sleep, then to break the bond and maybe ask Jaskier if he’d like some more years added to his lives (more decades, more centuries, _an eternity_ if Geralt will only be able to stay by his side and keep him safe). Maybe, in the quiet corner of his frazzled mind, maybe he wonders if the jinn might be able to heal a burn on his arm, to give him back his Mark. Just wonders, nothing else.

Then, the djinn is out and Jaskier’s coughing up blood, his throat swollen. Geralt can smell the magic take hold and start spreading, he can feel it thrumming under bard’s skin and yet-

Not for one second does Jaskier smell of fear. Not as he chokes against his back, not as he carried him to the elf and then to the mage-

The mage.

Yennefer.

She’s so much like him that it hurts and with all the fantasies running amok, with Jaskier dying, he lets himself wonder. If maybe that’s what would work, if maybe a mage would be able to survive by his side. Wonder how much it would take to learn what makes mages eternal and if it could be done do Jaskier...

Then there are her tricks and the cell, reminding him why he always hated mages, and then only one wish left. He goes back to mayor’s house and for all her lies, he would’ve let Yennefer try and fail against the djinn.

But she’s _a mage_. Destiny favour those that share in her chaotic powers and Geralt cannot risk even a small chance of bad luck or the magic working against Jaskier, not when there’s still blood on his clothes and when his skin is so pale.

He should’ve thought out the wish better. He knows it the moment his leg burns as if branded, then the moment his eyes lock with Yennefer’s he loses all reason and fucks with her in that damn room.

When he walks out, Chireadan is sitting by unconscious Jaskier and for a moment, his blood runs old and he falls to his knees, any daze from the wish fulfilled gone in an instant. It takes three time for him to hear that the bard just fainted and only then can he breathe again himself.

Jaskier wakes up angry and Geralt tries not to flinch, because he deserves it, all of it. He always threatened his voice, and now his life as well. He deserves everything Jaskier would give him, anything that would let him stay despite it all.

“The djinn was mine.” He says and his hands keep brushing at the proof burned into his leg. “I did this to you.“ the words cut as his tongue, but they are true and Jaskier deserves to know, deserves to make a choice with full knowledge of what he’s risking.

“It’s fine.” Jaskier smile is fake, but he’ not leaving, so Geralt will take it, take anything that isn’t losing him.

Because there is one thing to travelling with the witcher he managed to keep hidden from Jaskier until now.

The danger that _Geralt_ poses to him.

He fears Jaskier will realize it now. That he will finally become scared, this time of him. He’s terrified he will hurt him again and it will all fall to pieces.

“You’re alive, Geralt, and I’m fine. Nothing worse than a monster hunt gone bad, right?”

He wishes it was true. He wishes it was nothing worse than when a monster gets to Jaskier, but it isn’t. It’s his life that almost ended because Geralt cannot get himself under control, because he let fantasies and childish wishes make him so unstable he almost killed the one person in his life he cares about, one person who stuck with him no matter what, all in a fit of impatience.

It’s Jaskier’s safety and he has justproven the closer he is to him, the more he hurts him.

So he turns to Yennefer instead, _tries_ with her.

There is a mark burned into his leg now, lilac and gooseberries. She smells of them, too, and he tries to not think of her betrayal and manipulation whenever they meet (it doesn’t work and he always leaves before she wakes up).

It’s the first time Geralt has been with someone long enough, but he thinks he smells hints of _love_ from her.

He knows love, from passing and from afar. You don’t make a living by rescuing people without smelling it as you bring loved ones back safe and sound.

Love smells like sunshine coming rough canopy of trees, like warmed earth and petrichor, it feels like sinking into warm water, like the pressure on your skin when you're held, but it’s more. With Yennefer the lilac and gooseberries mute it out, overpowering. He smelt it from Jaskier often enough, the bard loves so much and so easily. It’s mixed with salt and chamomile that are purely him, but never overpowering. He assumes it means that Jaskier loves him only as friends. That Yennefer, even if bound by wish, might truly love him.

She’s a safe choice, he’s not too proud to admit it. She’s a mage, she’s strong-willed, she can take care of herself. She would survive by his side safely, right?

The wish lures them to each other and she’s bound to notice, but he can’t tell her yet. He needs to be sure – they both need to be sure if this is to work out. He needs it to work out, because the haze of sex and their bond is the only thing able to quiet his mind these days, filled with emotions and fantasies and fears.

He starts to realize, when she reads him mind _again_ despite him asking her not to do it, that he there might be no chance of it, but doesn’t know what he would do without the time he can spend with her, forgetting everything else and forcing his mind to clear before he breaks completely.

So he doesn’t say anything.

* * *

Things change, but some stay the same. There are rumours about a werewolf roaming the wood and a lord wants to wed out his daughter safely, so Geralt and Jaskier go. They find Yennefer at an arm of a count who's one of the guests.

She sends him an exasperated smile, but doesn’t even stop clinging to count’s side, so he leaves her for now. Mages live by sticking to royals, just like he goes after monster, he doesn’t hold it against her.

“I’ll get things in our room, fine by you?” Jaskier snaps his out of his thoughts.

He nods, but corrects him: “Rooms.”

“Right.” Jaskier bites his lip, playing with a tie of his glove. “Rooms, of course. I’ll get them and leave you to sniffing out the beasts.” He pats his shoulder and then walks away.

They separate rooms bother Geralt more than he’d like to admit. He can’t share with Jaskier when Yennefer gets dropped on them every now and then, but the nights stretch into sleepless waiting as he worries about all thing human and not that might get a drop on the bard.

He still teaches him to fight and use the dagger that’s kept in his boot or under a pillow, but-

“Will you share your thoughts, or will you force me to steal them again?” Yennefer saunters by, fur covering a silk dress.

“I’m worried.” He lies, because he prefers to keep her out of his head if possible. “Werewolves don’t come out in breeding season and not so far from the mountains.”

“Hmm.” She lifts his chin up with a finger and leans in to whisper, sweet scent enveloping him for a moment: “I can think of a few ways to waste time, should it turn out to be just rumours.”

Geralt watches as she walks away and sighs before getting to work. He does spend the night with her, wasting time, because there isn’t much to learn beside rumours anyway.

As she lays close to him, she circles the mark on his leg.

“Never saw mine, you know.” She whispers against his skin and be brushes her hair away. “Got twisted, and then the magic rid of it as it did of _anything wrong_ with me.” Her smile is bitter and she sits up, straddling his stomach. “I think I prefer this. You, bound to_ me_.” Her fingers brush trough hair on his chest and he hopes she doesn’t feel his heart falter underneath them at the words.

They eat breakfast there, a rare occasion when he didn’t leave by the morning.

Jaskier should be happy with another court to play at and a lady to entertain. He never seemed to replace Stael with another patron (and Geralt doesn’t let himself think about how it makes him feel) so Geralt tries to let them be lured into contracts like that once in a while.

Just because he’s a coward and sticks to safer option doesn’t mean the way he cannot imagine life without Jaskier changed. It didn’t, if anything it got worse because it became so clear how domestic they became across the years, missing only sex (him and Yennefer missing all _outside_ of sharing the bed, in a painfully clear contrast).

The contract turns out as dull as they always do when it comes to royalty. The woman, lady Cinna, was being wed for profit and nothing else. She had a lover before betrothal, a man named Samuel that has gone missing a while ago.

Her new husband, previously count Evan and not a proper lord, knew about the lover. He paid a mage to turn Samuel into a werewolf, so he could kill him and break Cinna completely so he won’t have to bother with even a pretence of a marriage.

The beast escaped the cage and the twisted mind was still calling it to the castle where he used to meet his love. Geralt does his best to stall the wolf when it crashed into a ballroom during celebrations and tells Yennefer to try breaking the spell, but the werewolf manages to tear into the lord Evan.

The spell is broken a moment later, then Samuel is killed by the guards at the order of Cinna’s father, the new widow left with nothing beside grief and trashed room. It leaves bad taste in Geralt’s mouth as he cleans his sword and sheathes it.

“That was a waste of time.” Yennefer leans against a pillar broken in two, fur discarded when the wolf got his claws on it.

“What, you got somewhere to be?” Jaskier rolls his eyes, rubbing at his arm. “No pleasure in other’s misery unless you cause it yourself?”

“Unless I can _profit_, not really.” Yennefer shrugs and somehow it only makes Jaskier angrier.

“Right, I forgot. No feelings with you, even satisfaction at the cost of others.” He snaps. “Say, how do you live without a heart in your chest?”

“How do _you_ without a brain?”

“Enough.” Geralt sighs.

He’s not sure why they hate each other so much. Jaskier, he might understand, a misguided need to protect Geralt since he knows all too well how badly it ends whenever he deals with mages – and Geralt can’t in good conscience say Yennefer is _not_ one to be protected from.

Her animosity, he truly doesn’t get, because she seems so above anything else human, often so above anything in general, but Jaskier somehow seems to get under his skin. It’s bizarre, but he knows better than asking her.

“We’re leaving.” He says, because he has no patience for their quarrels and needs to get out of this cursed castle as fast as possible.

Before he does something _stupid_, like killing a lord for ordering his guards to murder a curse victim.

“Till the next happenstance, then.” Yennefer smiles and then she’s gone with a shimmer of a portal.

Jaskier glares at the air for a moment longer, as if he could send a curse after her, before turning to Geralt.

“Where to now?”

Geralt shrugs, because he has no idea. He’ll need a day or two to wash out the bitter taste from his mouth after this whole mess.

They’re riding out of the town, Jaskier’s back presses to his as he strums on his lute, low humming indicating there is a song in the making already. By the tone, Geralt’s betting on a sad ballad and a lord losing his reputation within a month. He’d be number seventeen because Jaskier _keeps count_, and a first one in quite a while.

The kids pass them by, laughing, and Geralt grinds his teeth when they start to play out a man being torn to pieces by a wolf. They seem happy, so clearly new lord was not popular, as if the way Cinna’s father didn’t lift a finger to protect him wasn’t already telling.

Geralt can agree lord Evan was a waste of air he breathed, but no death should be celebrated. No matter what.

“Well!” Jaskier jumps off and Geralt pats Roach’s neck so she won’t kick him across the road.

Before he can blink, Jaskier’s already charming the children and swaying theatrically as he walks alongside a dilapidated stone wall that’s crumbling away and barely reaches his waist.

“_Don’t ever laugh as a hearse goes by~! For you may be the next to die~._” Jaskier sings and there is a familiar bite to his voice, fingers strumming the lute sharply, but the children don’t notice, trailing after him. “_They wrap you up in bloody sheets to drop you 6 feet underneath... it all goes well for about a week, and then your coffin begins to leak!_” he twists around, almost falling before he manages to land on the ground.

“_And the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play pinochle on your snout!_” Jaskier sings, but swings the lute to his back and reaches to pull at a nose of the only girl in a group, making two other boys giggle as she makes a face. “_They eat your eyes, they eat your nose, as you begin to decompose~! The ones that crawl out are fat and stout, your eyes fall in and your hair falls out~!_” He pulls at her braid now, before backing away to catch up to Geralt and he uses the stone wall to jump back behind him, lute in front of him again. “_So don’t ever laugh as a hearse goes by for someday you'll be the one to die!_” he continues and this close, Geralt can smell the sharp anger. “_And when death brings his cold despair, ask yourself: will anyone care?_” he finishes the melody with a flourish and waves to the kids.

Geralt smiles and at next crossroads turns them to the closes city. The strings at the lute need replacing again.

* * *

Jaskier’s using lacquer nowadays. Geralt’s thought it was just for the lute, but rain caught them on the road and they had to dry out their clothes. He saw his clean hand then and realized it’s not for the instrument, but to keep his Mark _hidden_.

He’s not sure what to think of it, besides promising he never had any intention of looking at his Mark unless he was allowed (and still isn’t sure if he’d take him up on the offer if he ever extended it).

Jaskier gives him a small, bitter smile and shrugs, stretching his legs in front of the fire. There is a seasonal market going on and they only found lodging because someone owed the bard a favour, a flute player deciding to bunk up with someone she knows and give them her room.

“It’s not that.” Jaskier rubs his hand absentmindedly. It became a habit f his lately, it’s why Geralt smelt the lacquer as it flaked under the soft leather. “Just- it’s nothing.” he sighs and looks away.

Geralt frown, mind torn between two possibilities.

That Jaskier either found the Mark, or that he gave up on the search. Either way, he kept being with him, so Geralt shouldn’t push for explanation, but-

“It’ not nothing.” He sits by the bard and bumps their shoulder together. Jaskier sighs again, crestfallen, before his head lands in witcher’s arm and blue eyes close.

“It’s _you_, if you must know.” He says finally. “Choosing your soulmate like that, Geralt... made me reconsider telling mine. At least for now.” His smile is bitter.

Geralt wraps an arm around him, because he’s not sure what to say. Jaskier seemed mostly irritated, but then neutral when he explained and showed the mark tying him to Yennefer.

He wonders how much she’ll hate him for it, but then still says:

“She never saw hers.” He glances over at Jaskier, but isn’t sure what to read from his look and that sickly sweet smell again. He really wishes he knew what it was. “I mean, you don’t need it to be happy. Or find anyone.” He shrugs and looks at the fireplace.

Jaskier’s silent long enough he thinks he fell asleep and plans to carry him to the bed when-

“Are you, Geralt?” he asks softly. “Are you happy?”

Geralt doesn’t know what to answer.

He’s happy to have Jaskier with him, happier than ever in his life. He’s- _content_ with Yennefer, hoping that with time they can get closer and their sharp edges might fit together or smooth against each other, that the wish will stop being the only thing making them meet.

He doubts that’s what Jaskier is asking for. He’s now sure he knows what it is, but definitely not that.

So he says nothing.

* * *

Yennefer is less exasperate and starts to look irritated with their every meeting.

Geralt feels guilt pool into his stomach, more and more, starting to weigh him down.

He should tell her, the truth, but he can’t. She’s so obsessively unbound by anything or anyone, takes so much pleasure from owning him, he’s not sure how she’d react (or rather, he knows too well, but doesn’t want to admit this whole plan was just his pathetic attempt at getting out of the fucked up wish).

She leaves by a portal whenever she likes to, now, no longer falling asleep by him. It means he can’t go away first, but also that most of the times Jaskier finds him, and his mind that barely quieted is a buzz of emotions and thoughts right away again.

It all comes to a head at the quest for a dragon. They met, again, despite Yennefer telling him she’ll go away for a while. She’s clearly just angry this time, ignoring them beside jabs she exchanges with Jaskier, but even those she puts no effort into.

Then Borch falls, all three of them fall and Geralt’s mind is fried like tree hit with lightning, normal on the outside as he continues on the way across the mountain, but blazing with fire inside if you only find the crack and look inside.

Jaskier’s a _human_. He’s mortal. he’s getting old if the crow’s feet comment was true.

He’s as easy to kill like Borch, one wrong step and he would’ve been the one Geralt lost, forever.

He tries not to think how likely it is he would’ve jumped right after him and goes to Yennefer, because if his mind doesn’t quiet, he will snap.

“I really don’t get it.” She says, stretched on a bed fitted magically in a small tent, because even angry she’s not one to refuse an offer of good sex. “A lifetime without a trace of a witcher, but now we orbit each other like bloody magnets.”

Geralt strokes a hand along her arm and tries to find words to explains it, right words that will tell how he just wanted her to be safe, to be alive, to not die stupidly to an impossible fight with a djinn. That he never wished to tie them up like that, he didn’t wish to bind them, that he knows all about the ties of destiny and how much they suck.

He finds nothing. There are no good words, only his mistake, however well intentioned. Even wish’s magic must be weaning, the haze that took their senses in that house now barely noticeable. Soon she’ll notice enough to guess and still, Geralt cannot find the words.

He goes back, doesn’t even try to find an excuse. He grabs the dagger as it flies at him, smiling briefly at the way Jaskier’s not even awake and still able to defend himself. At least that he managed to do well. Maybe he will stay alive for a while longer?

Geralt shakes his head, trying to get thoughts like that out and sits on the edge of the sleep roll.

He breathes, focusing on Jaskier’s smell as he sits up and can’t quite hide the grimace when he smells lacquer breaking off.

Maybe he was right all along, to hide it...

Maybe Geralt should’ve done the same and not chase a magic-induced dream.

“Why’d she fuck off this time?” Jaskier leans against Geralt, head on his arm and it’s only for a moment before he flinches back.

Somehow it leaves him feeling worse and more cold than when Yeenefer leaves by a portal without a word.

“If she-“

“It was a mistake.” Geralt admits, finally, because it’s Jaskier and if he can admit it to anyone, it’s him.

He was never able to lie _to himself_ – ignore what he feels or think, maybe, but not lie.

“Hey, come on... what happened?” Jaskier doesn’t come closer, but a gentle hand is rubbing at Geralt arm and makes him relax, leaning into the touch.

“She keeps asking how we find each other.” He forces out, fists clenching. “I’ve tried to-“ He’s no longer sure what he tried. To keep her with him, to try and connect since they’re so similar, to make the best of the wish and its effect, to find distraction and take his mind off the complicated mess that became his relationship with Jaskier? All of it, none of it. “I can’t.” He’s sure of that, at least, he doesn’t want to tell her the truth or to lose her. “Don’t know how, but I want to-.” He wants so many things, but above all else he just wants to not lose anyone.

Jaskier makes a face and Geralt tries to find the strength to leave and deal with his problems on his own, like he should’ve done since the start-

“It’s easy.” But Jaskier looks away, his voice sleep-soft, but his smell bitter and dusty. “I kinda have your mark, but I _chose_ to bind us. Let’s be happy!” he throws his arms around and-

Geralt can _smell_ it. The sincerity, fresh and bright, the affection, citrusy and sweet, but all spoiled by that damned, sickly smell that keeps coming off of Jaskier so much lately.

There is a crack, the smell of Marked skin and Geralt looks up by a habit, and he sees-

He blinks, reaching to hold Jaskier’s wrist, uncaring for how tight his grip is, because it can’t-

He can see part of _his Mark_. Edges of a wolf’s eye, open maw, the lines sharp and black against the skin.

His mind turns blank for a short moment, unable to accept what he is seeing, Jaskier’s curse barely registering in his ears.

But then it sinks in – his Mark on Jaskier’s skin, since forever, since the first day they met, trough all the years they spend together, and suddenly, he thinks _too much_. About every time Jaskier flirted with people around and with him, the drunken poetry he’d be spewing before he learned how to drink. The talk before Cintra and the one as they escaped it. Every time Geralt cursed out the soulbonds, every time he mocked destiny and fate. The lacquer he bought only after Yennefer came into the picture. Their talk, gods, what did Jaskier say?

_Choosing your soulmate like that, Geralt... made me reconsider telling mine. At least for now._

_Are you, Geralt? Are you happy?_

He thinks too much, but all that can go through his mouth is:

“Why?”

Why Jaskier never told him? Why he kept it away? Why he never got rid of it, if he didn’t want it? Why he stayed with him if not for the Mark?

Why, why, why-

Did he ever want him? Did he run to find any witcher he could, to test if it’s worth it? Did he stay because is suited him or because he assumed it’s the best he can get, with family sending mercenaries after him, a life as witcher’s barker still better that a marriage arranged for profit?

Did he even plan to meet him, ever, in Posada and every time they would stumble upon each other, or was it always _a happenstance_ that he just resigned himself to?

“Why _what_, Geralt?” Jaskier’s angry and he’s trying to pull his hand back. He feet goes over Geralt’s thigh, the brand there burning and he lets his hand go as if it burned too.

“Tell me, Geralt, why what?!” he’s looking at him and Geralt never wanted to make him reek of pain and misery, never wanted his eyes to carry such-

_Heartbreak._ That’s what this sweet, sickly smell always meant. How fitting, for him to recognize it now.

“Why I never told you, when time after time you said Marks are bullshit?! When it took breaking my ribs before you stopped fleeing Cintra and _bond of destiny_?! Or maybe when I thought you died for her, but no, you only _bound_ yourself to her!”

Geralt flinches, guilt heavy in his chest and pressing against his lungs. The lacquer is flaking off more, but he can’t bring himself to look, waiting out Jaskier’s outbursts and trying not to fall apart himself as the world he built around the two of them comes crashing down.

“Or maybe, when it took you a decade to even admit we’re maybe friends?” Jaskier’s eyes are bright and wet and Geralt needs to drag nails across his palms to stop himself for reaching out, to wipe them away, because he doesn’t deserve it. “I’ve spent more of my life by your side than away from you!” Jaskier hits him, weak and without any force behind it.

His words cut much more painfully, because was it really this long? Did Jaskier truly gave him half of his life and more, for nothing in return, but constant danger and pain and heartbreak? Did he miss all of it, somehow?

The kiss tastes like acid on his mouth. The words that follow flay his heart open.

“I did everything I could to be less of a burden for you, to help you, to make your life easier! What more could I ever do to make you care about me?! Tell me, what can I do to make you stop chasing her and finally give me a-a time of your day! Whatever i-it is!”

“It’s not me you-” He stops himself, _should be wanting _stuck in throat as he remembers a conversation in small inn by a lake, before Cintra, before it all started falling apart.

_Maybe someone out there will want you._

Because it can't be him. Anyone could be better. Maybe not Lambert, he’s too rough around the edges and to cruel when he’s cornered, but Eskel would fit bard well, probably, he’s calm enough for them not to clash. Even Vesemir, bastard he is, would be better for Jaskier. Anyone on the continent would be, just by not being Geralt.

None of them stole his breath and voice time after time, none of them learned the feeling of his bones breaking under his fist, none of them almost killed him with a djinn.

None of them dragged him across the contentment in misery and heartbreak.

None of them flaunted finding another in front of his face.

_They're better by the simple fact of not being Geralt and not fucking it as much as he did._

“He speaks at last!” Jaskier is choking, either on laugh or tears. Geralt’s not sure. “No, it’s not yo_ur bloody name _on my skin, but it’s your witchery necklace! I chose you! I chose to be with you, to care about you, to fall in love with you! Not anyone else! I don’t care if that’s what destiny planned for me, that’s what I chose!”

Geralt feels his heart stop completely, the air so heavy with _sunshine_ and _petrichor_ and _sweet citrus_ and _oh_, _he was so wrong before_. It’s not love when their smell _overpowers_ that of affection, it’s when it mixes and blends so perfectly they become one and the same.

Then the sickly, spoiled stench is back, as the silence stretches.

“Fuck off. If you’re gonna just _sit there_ and _be silent_ then go do it somewhere else!”

_Choice_.

To stay or to go, to say something and react, to address the world-worth of revelations that Jaskier poured out, along with his heart. But Geralt tried to choose already, he chose Yennefer and where did it get him, where did it get _them_?

“It’s my tent, you know.” He says, because he’s a coward and a bastard and even now would try and push the choices back to Jaskier, who clearly make much better ones than he ever could.

“I don’t care! After everything, you owe me not catching pneumonia on a fucking mountainside!”

Geralt bites down on his tongue, till it hurts, till it’s numb, till it bleeds into his mouth. Nothing washes off the bitter taste as he stands up and moves to leave.

The dagger is still on the ground. He picks it up on a habit, to give it back so Jaskier won’t be defenceless in the night-

Fear hits him in the chest, blade dropping as he chokes on his own breath, air bitter and acrid and it’s the first time he smells it coming from Jaskier _and it’s all because of him._

He manages to get out of the tent before he collapses to the ground, gasping for breath. His blood has frozen, heart broke into shards that rub at his insides.

All his fault. He had everything, could’ve had all he always wanted, but he fucked it all up and now Jaskier’s afraid of him.

_Nothing_ will ever fix it.

Jaskier loved him and he spent years taking advantage of it, but when given a choice he still couldn’t take it because he’s so scared that all he would do is fuck it up even more...

Then he hears the song, and feels pieces of his heart shatter to dust.

Because it's true and he _hates_ that it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry? It got away from me as I wrote, but I can promise happy end in the next chapter.
> 
> Songs used:  
Harley Poe//The Hearse song

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna make it happy, but it might take a while because midterms are officially killing me.  
***  
Songs used, sometimes modified:  
Thrice // The Lion And The Wolf  
Cat Pierce // You Belong To Me  
The Police // Every Breath You Take  
Marina Mena // Self‐Fulfilling Prophecy  
Marina Mena // Sorry


End file.
